How Hot Was It in Australia? Hot Enough to Melt Asphalt

Sydney NSW 2000

Australia

Maggie Astor

The New York Times

Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday as the temperature reached as high as 117 degrees. Photo: Glenn Campbell, European Pressphoto Agency

Across large areas of Australia, temperatures hit life-threatening levels. Penrith, a suburb of Sydney, reached 47.3 degrees Celsius on Sunday, or just over 117 degrees Fahrenheit. It was the hottest day on record in Penrith, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, New South Wales, and the hottest anywhere in the Sydney area since 1939, when a temperature of 47.8 degrees — 118 degrees Fahrenheit — set a record that still stands.