An Aussie Outback town has sweltered through the hottest day in the world where even the chooks needed to cool off in the air-conditioning.
To show how blisteringly hot it was in Marree, about 660km north of Adelaide, on Thursday, one local posted a photo to Facebook with a handheld thermometer showing a reading of 54C.
‘Well, if 36 is a heat wave what is this??,’ he captioned the image.
Lyall Oldfield, the owner of the Marree Roadhouse and Caravan Park, told Daily Mail Australia ‘it’s been a hot few days across town’.
‘I did actually go and do some work around the park and the bloody hot wind was nearly blowing me off the forklift,’ Mr Oldfield said.
The outback town of Marree sweltered through the hottest day in the world on Wednesday with the temperature reaching 54 degrees (pictured)
Large parts of Australia, particularly New South Wales, are set to swelter through a heatwave (pictured, national heatwave forecast)
‘It gets bloody hot here and I got a hundred chooks running around a half acre block so I put an air conditioner on to keep them cool.’
The scorching heat has forced his staff to start and finish work earlier but Mr Oldfield said locals are hardened to the hot conditions.
‘You just get used to it… it hasn’t got any hotter or any cooler. It’s still just very hot,’ he said.
Marree was among 15 rural towns across Australia that recorded some of the highest temperatures across the world.
Sydney could see its hottest day in almost four years on Saturday with temperatures forecast to reach 42C
World temperature website El Dorado Weather recorded 10 towns across the country that hit more than 45C.
Olympic Dam Airport, also in South Australia, recorded the second highest temperature at 46.1C followed by Marble Bar in Western Australia’s north which reached 45.7C.
The weather bureau says high temperatures will last until the end of next week with heatwave warnings across most of Australia except for Tasmania.
People have been urged to stay indoors during the hottest part of the day and to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated.