Broken Hill in the Far West of Outback New South Wales has just come through one of the most severe heat events in its recorded history. And as tends to happen in extreme conditions, the temperature didn’t just melt bitumen — it melted tempers, certainty, and a few long-held myths about what constitutes a “normal” outback summer. What followed was a familiar regional ritual: outrage on social media, performative localism, and a collective refusal by some to accept what the data — and the lived experience of the past few weeks — is plainly telling us. New Matilda editor Chris Graham, who is now based in the Silver City, takes up the story.
Heat can sometimes make humans do silly things. Take, for example, this social media rant posted last week on a Facebook page called Broken Hill Group by a gentleman unironically named “Noah”.
I can save you having to read the rant – Noah’s specific objection was that the folks running the Broken Hill town pool shut up shop early on Tuesday at 4pm, rather than the advertised time of 8pm. As a result, Noah only managed to squeeze in an hour-and-a-half swim for his $5. Diddums.
You might remember last Tuesday from such nation-wide news stories as “Historic heatwave sets all-time records as temperatures exceed 49°C”.
At last count, Noah was being torn a new one by several hundred Broken Hill locals, many of whom suggested that if he were so passionate about public service, perhaps he could don some Speedos and reopen the pool himself. So — possibly affected by the heat — Noah decided to double down.
“Were you there at the pool today this arvo? No. The 2 lifeguards were fine they were smiling and laughing, chilling in the shade and had available water to survive their job as a lifeguard….”
“…Smiling and laughing, chilling in the shade….” Interesting take. Let’s talk that through, shall we?
Here’s a photo I took on the other side of Broken Hill, also on Tuesday, shortly after the pool closed. You’ll note the sign — which measures the local ambient temperature — is not “chilling in the shade”.
And here’s a pic of Broken Hill High’s second sign, just 100 metres around the corner. This one is in the shade. Although it also doesn’t appear to be smiling, laughing, or chilling.
Which got me to thinking… for a species that spends so much time talking about the weather, it’s surprising how little we actually understand about it. For example, did you know that the official temperatures — the ones that go in the record books — are taken in the shade?
Noah apparently didn’t. Or didn’t care. Either way, it turns out I photographed the Broken Hill High School temperature sign at the exact moment it displayed the highest ever official temperature recorded in the town’s 142-year history.
47.8°C. In the shade.
That’s not hot, thisssss is hot
If you’ve never experienced it, then you might be asking yourself exactly how hot is 47.8°C, in practical terms? During my drive around town to grab photos, I made the mistake of getting out of the car and walking into the middle of the road to line up a shot.
It melted onto my thongs.
I didn’t notice until I got back into the car and drove off, because the tar on my right thong stuck it to the accelerator. I had to tilt my foot back to slow down, then slip it out of the thong — which remained stuck to the pedal — so I could hit the brake.
Needless to say, if you can’t understand why a supervisor with staff working outside in a non-essential job, in temperatures approaching 50°C, might send their crew home early… well, it’s possible you’ve spent too much time outdoors yourself.
Of course, all good things must come to an end. Same goes for shitty things. Broken Hill’s heatwave eventually broke, and by the end of it we’d experienced eight straight days above 40°C. Saturday — the last day of the run — was a balmy 47.4 degrees, narrowly missing the record set just a few days earlier.
But as you might have guessed, social media being what it is these days, Noah wasn’t the only local resident making a bit of a goose of himself online.
It’s just a flesh wound…
As is common on the Facebook pages of small Australian towns, there’s a concerted effort by some locals to appear more local than other locals. “How long have you lived here?” is officially the second-most commonly asked question in Australian rural communities (“Are you going to eat that?” is number one – Google it, I shit you not).
I call these folk ‘hyper-locals’, and unfortunately Broken Hill is not immune from this phenomenon, which helps explain how discussion inevitably turned from ‘Pull your head in Noah’ to that old chestnut ‘This is just another Broken Hill summer”, and it’s ugly cousin, ‘Broken Hill has always been like this.’
Unsurprisingly, the sort of folks who like to claim climate change isn’t real — that these are just “Indian summer days”, whatever the hell that means — also tend to be fond of phrases like “Do your own research.” Helpfully, when it comes to temperatures in Broken Hill (and virtually every town in Australia), you can actually go it solo and depart from expert opinion and analysis. Which is what I decided to do.
Admittedly, I didn’t have access to Tom’s dad’s personal diaries, but I was able to access 134 years’ worth of official weather data from the Bureau of Meteorology. And an analysis of that data reveals… Spoiler alert: Broken Hill hasn’t always ‘been like this’. Not even close.
The graph above shows the annual average temperature in Broken Hill from 1891 to 2025. I’m stating the bleeding obvious, but blind Freddy could almost see that something is going on.
And for the folks specifically claiming this is ‘just another normal Broken Hill summer’, I also pulled out the data for maximum temperatures in Summer only, since 1891.
You can see from the graphs above there’s been a steady upward trend in summer heat in Broken Hill. Most notably, only twice since records began has Broken Hill’s highest average summer temperature climbed above 28 degrees — in 2001 and again in 2019.
But it’s when you look at the extremes that the warming of this region becomes absolutely undeniable.
Of the 134 years of available data, 19 of the 25 hottest years on record have occurred since 1999.
Let that sink in for a moment: the last 27 years account for 19 of the hottest years on record, while the preceding 107 years account for just six of them.
Conversely, of the 25 coolest years on record, 2022 is the only year this century to make the list.
It’s not normal to think it’s normal
If those facts don’t convince you that Broken Hill weather has been anything but ‘normal’ since at least 2000, then frankly, nothing will. And speaking of extremists, Broken Hill’s run of appallingly hot weather lasted eight consecutive days, from January 24 to 31. For obvious reasons, this sparked quite a bit of discussion about “records”, and virtually everyone got it wrong.
The local ABC reported last week: “Broken Hill’s Airport has recorded eight straight days of temperatures above 40 degrees for the first time since records began in 1947.”
That’s technically correct… if you only take readings from the Broken Hill Airport weather station. Traditionally, before Broken Hill has had two weather stations – the airport, and the longest-serving station, situated in Patton Street in the south of the city. It closed in 2015, but before it did it recorded 12 straight days above 40°C in January–February 2009.
Even the Bureau of Meteorology was getting it wrong. Forecaster Jonathon How told ABC Radio, “We’ve actually never seen eight days in a row above 40 degrees (in Broken Hill).” It’s their data, ffs.
Moving on, the 2009 heatwave occurred toward the end of the Millennium Drought, but it’s worth noting two things. First, both records — 2009 and 2026 — have occurred since 2000. And second, the difference between them is stark.
In 2009, the average temperature across the heatwave was 41.9°C, with a maximum of 45°C. This year, the average temperature was 45.6°C — higher than 2009’s hottest single day, and almost 4°C hotter on average.
Four degrees might not sound like much, but in meteorological terms, the difference is enormous. If you want a useful comparison, think of interest rates. Today you’re paying four percent. Tomorrow, it jumps to eight. How’s that feel?
Of course, climate-change deniers — and locals convinced it’s all a leftist conspiracy — are likely to argue that two events in two decades proves this isn’t rare. Which is certainly one way to look at it. The other is that it was two events in more than 100 years. And speaking of centuries, in the last 100 years or so, we’ve had two world wars and two global pandemics. No-one would reasonably describe those events were ‘business as usual’. The fact that Broken Hill experienced two extreme heatwaves in just 17 years — and nothing comparable in the preceding 100 — strongly suggests that something has changed.
Just to be sure, I crunched the data on the number of heatwaves since 1957 (daily temp data for Broken Hill is more limited than monthly averages). I defined a heatwave as three or more consecutive days above 40°C. Of the top 10 longest heatwaves, only one occurred before 2001 — a six-day event in 1979.
Some relief… although that depends how you define it
Eventually, when the heatwave finally broke on Saturday evening, it did so in typically dramatic Broken Hill fashion. Strong winds whipped up a massive dust storm, plunging the city into near darkness. Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.
That was followed by two days of comparatively cool temperatures — 28°C and 25°C — roughly half the temperature of what the heatwave had delivered. Which, of course, triggered a major fish kill in the nearby Menindee Lakes system.
In previous years, the Baaka (Darling River) around Menindee has experienced multiple large-scale fish kill events, including the ‘big ones’ in 2018 and 2019, which wiped out millions of fish, many of them giant Murray cod estimated to be decades old. So far this summer, we’ve only seen a kill in the hundreds of thousands. But there’s still plenty of time to wipe out more of our wildlife, so watch this space.
The fish kills are, in part, a direct consequence of increasingly extreme weather. Massive temperature swings — rapid drops, for example, from 47.4°C on January 31 to 25.4°C on February 2 — trigger explosive growth in blue-green algae in an already highly polluted system.
As the algae bloom, oxygen levels crash. And then fish suffocate.
As temperatures become more extreme, we can expect fish kills to become more frequent, something already borne out by the past decade, which has seen major events in 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024, 2025, and now 2026.
A few years ago, I interviewed a Barkindji Traditional Owner about his childhood growing up on the Baaka (Darling) in Wilcannia. He remembered standing on the highway bridge with his Nan, watching catfish build their nests in the river below. The water was clean. And clear. In modern times, it looks more like this.
And that’s during what would be considered a good period… when there’s actually water in the river at all. Albeit water you not only can’t drink, but shouldn’t let touch your skin.
You can’t even let your dogs in it.
I include all this doom and gloom about heat and dead fish because the one thing I will concede is that the hyper-locals — the people with a pathological need to prove they’re more local than anyone else by denying the reality of our changing climate — do, I think, genuinely love this region. Broken Hill is a stunning place to visit, and to live, horrendous lead contamination notwithstanding (another feature for another day… soon).
Which makes you wonder why some are so determined to deny just how badly we’re trashing it.
In any event, even if the future looks increasingly bleak — and it’s becoming harder by the year to believe we’ll meet our climate targets — it’s always best to try and end on a hopeful, upbeat note.
So, notwithstanding Noah’s outrage at the pool staff shutting up shop early, here’s another post shared on social media last week: a story about a local woman who wandered around Broken Hill handing out Zooper Doopers to people unlucky enough to be working in the heat.
And to those people — the essential service workers who slogged it out through days of 40-plus degree heat, including the lifeguards “chatting and chilling” in the 47.8°C shade — a heartfelt thank you.