Sydney Morning Herald: Australia began collating reliable weather readings on a national scale in 1910. Since that year, the hottest-ever September occurred just last month. And if the warm weather continues, 2013 will turn out to be Australia’s hottest year since the previous record was set in 2005. More than 120 records related to extreme weather were broken in the summer of 2012–13, among them the hottest day, 7 January 2013, when the average maximum temperature for the whole country reached 40.3°C (104.5°F). Given that the frequency of heatwaves has increased in Australia over the past 60 years, climate change is a likely culprit.