Record heat in SE Australia

Oz is getting so hot the BOM has had to introduce new colours for the top of the scale
Source: The New Scientist

Here in Oz, we're used to summer having a few hot days.  But the last few weeks have been unbearable.  As Ben Phillips from the Australian National University tweeted:

Adelaide had 4 days of 40+ temps between 1955 and 1966 and 39 days between 2005 and 2015. How will the end of this century look?

Indeed.  Records across Australia have crashed.  In some places we've never recorded such high temperatures over the last 130 years.  The number of new records is too long to list.

Meanwhile, although coal power stations have tripped because of the heat, the losses have been made up by renewables:

While there have been coal-fired power station breakdowns during the heatwave, wind, solar and hydro are working to fill in the gaps.

Between 600 and 800 megawatts is coming from wind power on Friday.This is around the equivalent of the two broken generators at EnergyAustralia's Yallourn power plant. 

"Wind power is running quite strongly in Victoria at the moment," Australian Wind Alliance chief Andrew Bray said.

Wind and solar combined are providing almost 18 per cent of the state's power. When hydro power is included, renewables account for almost 40 per cent of Victoria's electricity.

Victoria is also leaning heavily on South Australia, which is exporting 25 per cent of its power to the state.

Wind and solar combined currently account for around 35 per cent of South Australia's energy today.

[Source: Melbourne's The Age Newspaper]

Note:

1. The right-wing L/NP ruling coalition wants to build more coal power stations--with public subsidy because they are now wildly outcompeted by dirt-cheap renewables.
2. Despite, according to the L/NP, coal supposedly being more reliable than renewables, it is renewables which have kept going and coal power stations which have failed just when electricity demand is very high for air conditioning.
3. South Australia is supposed to be dependent on Victoria and NSW for its power because of all those pesky renewables, but it's actually exporting power to Victoria.
4. The L/NP are still denying that this record heat and the worst drought ever have anything to do with global warming.
5. They are demented.