WA; Perth residents swelter through the night, with more to come

AAP General News (Australia)
02-17-2004
WA; Perth residents swelter through the night, with more to come

By Holly Nott

PERTH, Feb 17 AAP - Perth residents sweltered in their beds last night as the mercury
refused to dip below 30 degrees, giving the city its hottest night in seven years.

The mercury finally dipped to a low of 27.7 degrees just moments before the sun rose
on another scorching day.

Bureau of Meteorology climate information officer John Relf said at midnight last night
the temperature in metropolitan Perth was still 32.7 degrees Celsius, after peaking at
38.5 degrees at 2.46pm (WST).

Mr Relf said it was the hottest Perth night in seven years - and only 1.6 degrees off
the all-time hottest minimum of 29.3 degrees recorded in 1898, 1933 and 1962.

Teamed with the high humidity, it made for an uncomfortable night that strained electricity
supplies from Western Power and led to blackouts in several suburbs.

The minimum of 27.7 degrees was recorded about 5.37am today, and the temperature had
already climbed back up to 32.3 by 9am.

With today's top expected to be 40 degrees, there will be little relief with the overnight
minimum again expected to be about 27 degrees, before tomorrow's forecast top of 37.

"Thursday will bring possible showers and lower temperatures with a maximum of 33 and
another high minimum of 23 degrees," Mr Relf said.

"Friday looks a bit more human with a minimum of 19 and a maximum of 30 and fine, with
Saturday even more acceptable with 18 and 28."

Western Power spokesman Peter Winner said 5,000 metropolitan homes were blacked out
from about 8pm (WST) yesterday.

"There was a variety of causes but most of it was probably linked to the heat and the
high demand for electricity," Mr Winner said.

"The system is designed for extremes but there are going to be no electricity authority
guarantees that there will be 100 per cent reliability, and no guarantees that there won't
be interruptions to supply.

"Of the 850,000 customers we've got, 845,000 continued to get normal power supplies."

AAP hn/sco

KEYWORD: HEAT WA

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