AUSTRALIA SWELTERS IN FIERCE HEAT

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5315, 30 January 1947, Page 5

AUSTRALIA SWELTERS IN FIERCE HEAT

Thermometer Over 1 00 ; Dust And Dying Stock fSYDNEY, January 29. The scorched ihland areas of 'New South Wales, with temperatures soaring well aboye the century, are now being searedi by blistering westerly gales and chafed by stifling dust storms. More than 20 outback towns from the Murray River to the Queensland border, report hlazing heat to-day, with parohed countryside and dying stock. • In Sydney, uncomfortably clammy conditions are due to a freak humidity which has hovered in, the nineties all day. Moistuxe is forming in a dense fog which bl&nkets some harbourside areas. Broken Hill has had 15 days with a temperature over 100, and the whole town is under a pall of diust, blown by fierce winds. Canowinda reports 14 days with the temperature between 100 and llf. Mosquitoes, flies and dust act as a discomfort and worst of all, the town. has exhausted its beer supply. Walgett's temperature has been near 110 for six days. The country is bare of feed, and' the river Namoi is a series of small waterholes.

These are a few of the reports , which have been received in Sydny from the inland centres. All reports j are distressingly similar. It was estimated to-day that droughts in New South Wales since Tast July have cost export trade nearly 1,000,000 lambs.