Recent hot conditions have put heatwaves back in the spotlight, but Australia’s history shows they are far from unprecedented.
In January 1896, a 24-day heatwave swept the country, killing at least 437 people -one of the deadliest heat events on record.
The temperature was above 38 degrees for nearly a month, bushfires raged across the country and, at a time long before air conditioning, exhausted people dropped dead in the streets.
The extreme weather event was described as feeling ‘like a furnace’ and had much higher temperatures than parts of Australia are currently sweltering through.
That year of 1896 got off to a hot start and by January 14, newspapers were reporting people were dying from a range of complications brought on by the extreme temperatures.
By the third week of the year, 12 infants had died from heat-related illnesses in Goulburn, NSW, alone, a report on JoNova about the heatwave revealed.
People were fleeing cities on trains to seek refuge in mountains and hills, but one child escaping the heat ‘died at the moment the train arrived.’
Hospitals were at breaking point, and the death toll was rising.
Recent hot conditions have put heatwaves back in the spotlight, but Australia’s history shows they are far from unprecedented
An extreme Australian heatwave in January 1896 killed over 400 people and hospitalised many more. Wilcannia Hospital is pictured
By January 17 the mercury had climbed to 48.9C in Bourke, in north-west NSW—although there has been some dispute about the accuracy of temperature recordings due to changing methods over time.
‘The hospital is crowded, and a number of people are dangerously ill. More deaths are hourly expected,’ a newspaper article from January 18, 1896 read.
The heat was sending people ‘insane,’ leaving them helplessly wandering the streets before collapsing and falling dead.
Cattle died by the hundreds, water tanks dried up and the death toll continued to rise as the heatwave entered its fourth week.
Trains leaving Sydney’s west for the mountains were packed and the government ran extra services at discount prices for those seeking relief from the heat.
By January 24 the heatwave was declared ‘an unprecedented record,’ and the death toll in Bourke alone had reached 35.
‘The residents are really panic-stricken, and hundreds are leaving for cooler climates,’ one newspaper report revealed.
Most businesses across NSW had closed their doors by this point, except for hotels, as residents laid low waiting for the weather to cool.
In other parts of the country, temperatures had not dropped below 37 degrees since late 1895.
Many children were among those who died in the intense heatwave of 1896
Newspapers (pictured) at the time reported temperatures above 119F (48C)
The historic heatwave saw temperatures climb to 49 degrees and forced people to flee to the mountains in search of reprieve. Brewarrina is pictured in 1900
The 1896 heatwave saw people dropping dead in the streets as the stifling heat stretched on for 24 days. In Bourke (seen here in 1893) temperatures were nudging 50C
Almost 131 years on from that traumatic and deadly summer, Australia has again recorded extreme heat last weekend.
Sydney’s temperature peaked at 42.2C on Saturday, marking the second time in the 2025–26 summer that the city has hit that exact temperature – the first occurring on December 19.
The blistering conditions also marked the first time since 2013 that Sydney has recorded two days above 42C in the same summer at its official weather station at Observatory Hill, near the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Meanwhile, data from Weatherzone showed Australia’s mean temperature was more than 1.2C above average in 2025, making it the country’s fourth-warmest year in more than a century of records.
National average temperatures are calculated using observations from 112 weather stations across the country, dating back to 1910.
Australia’s mean annual temperature in 2025 was 21.8C – 1.23C above the 1961–1990 average, ranking as the fourth-highest annual mean temperature since records began.
Abnormally warm conditions were recorded across almost the entire country during 2025, with only parts of northern Australia spared. Several regions in southern Australia experienced their warmest year on record.
