Heatwave declared for South Australia this week, with several consecutive days over 40 degrees

Temperatures will soar above 40 for several days this week, with a forecaster expecting the heatwave to break December records.

An official heatwave for the coming week was declared on Sunday, with temperatures predicted to soar above 40C for four consecutive days in a row from Tuesday.

Thomas Boeck, senior forecaster for the Bureau of Meteorology SA, said the warmest day on record for Australia was January 7, 2013, when the average maximum temperature across the country was 40.3 degrees.

“We will be closely monitoring the … heat but it is possible we could approach or exceed out warmest Australian day on record,” he said.

Up until this point in December, temperatures had been relatively mild due to weather patterns near The Bight producing onshore winds.

But the continued northerly winds producing high temps in Western Australia and Northern Territory will move over SA, causing the heatwave.

“We’re expecting heatwave conditions to be increasing through the week, by the time we get to the middle and the end of the week we’ll have extreme heatwave conditions generally throughout the state,” Mr Boeck said.

He said he expected December temperature records in SA to be broken this week.

At this point, Mr Boeck said SA was quite fortunate that wind warnings had not been issued, decreasing the fire danger risk, but winds were expected to pick up on Friday.

The places expected to experience the worst of the heatwave were parts of the Eyre Peninsula, Ceduna and parts of the north west, including Tarcoola.

SA Health acting chief public health officer Chris Lease said people needed to be changing the times they do things to avoid the heat.

“It’s essential for people to change their activities to protect themselves from the conditions that we’re facing,” Dr Lease said.

Higher temperatures put people at risk of heat stroke, which could be fatal.

Dr Lease said the health network would monitor the conditions and increase staffing arrangements accordingly in an attempt to ease the strain on emergency departments.

State Emergency Services issued a heatwave community readiness alert on Sunday. A cool change will hit on Saturday, with Adelaide’s maximum easing to 26C.