[ZenGum]

Bugger this.

Pretty much the entire country is scorching hot, completely dry, very windy, and there is no relief in sight beyond a weak cool (but dry) change moving through today.

There are something like 200 fires, many uncontrolled or uncontained, all over the place. Hundreds of houses have already been destroyed in Tasmania, but today NSW is copping it worst. The cool change is a double-edged sword, cool is nice, but it comes with winds at 60 kph gusting to 90.

The best hope for real relief is a cyclone brewing up over the far north west, which *might* send a band of rain south and west across the continent, but that will take a week at best to arrive.

Tell me again about this "snow" stuff, will you?

Good news is that no lives have been lost yet, as far as anyone knows.