SYDNEY: Summer heat has been building up across Australia, with the country's western part to face severe to extreme heatwave in the remainder of the week, according to local weather services on Wednesday, reported Xinhua.
"A stubborn ridge of high pressure located to the south of Australia will direct hot and dry air towards the west coast of Western Australia (WA) over the next few days," the weather information provider Weatherzone reported.
Under the weather pattern, a prolonged spell of very warm days and nights is expected over a broad area of WA.
Daytime maximum temperatures in Perth are likely to hit at least 36 degrees Celsius from Wednesday until at least next Tuesday, with Thursday to Friday likely to see maximums around 39 to 41 degrees Celsius.
Meanwhile, across Gascoyne region located in the state's northwest, temperatures are estimated to soar up to 48 degrees Celsius.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has issued a heatwave warning effective from Tuesday through to Friday in WA, alerting locals to maximum temperatures increasing to high 30s to low 40s over the southwest by mid-week.
"Severe heatwave conditions are developing over the Gascoyne district and are expected to increase in intensity and area, extending down the west coast, towards the end of the week," the weather bureau noted.
In this summer, Australia has been sweltering through hot conditions. The latest figure from the BOM showed that Australia's national area-average mean temperature for January was 1.54 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the third-warmest January on record.
For Western Australia, it was the fifth-warmest January since observations began in 1910. - Bernama-Xinhua