For those who’ve not yet worked it out for themselves …. in a stable climate with variable seasonal influences, the great majority of both cold and hot records will cluster in the early years of that record. The longer and longer the timespan of the dataset in that stable climate, the less and less likely it will be to establish a new record at either end.

Variability ensures that there will always be some local “outlier” record-making events. But, unless something in the underlying climate system is changing, those records should be uncommon – and less common as time goes on.

Perhaps he might like to check what the BOM is saying – if he thinks that only half the story is being told here. He might try these on for size:

For September to December (i.e. the last four months of 2012) the average Australian maximum temperature was the highest on record with a national anomaly of +1.61 °C, slightly ahead of the previous record of 1.60 °C set in 2002 (national records go back to 1910).”

“To date (data up to the 7 January 2013) the national area-average for each of the first 7 days of 2013 has been
in the top 20 hottest days on record, with 6 January the fifth hottest on record and the first time 6 consecutive days over 39 °C has ever been recorded for Australia.”
(http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs43a.pdf)

Perhaps Aussieboy would like to explain what is ‘normal’ about that.

It was also just an oddity that Adelaide had its recordbreaking 15 consecutive days over 35C heatwave just one year before Melbourne and its surroundings had a shorter heatwave with Australia’s worst ever bushfires.

But that’s all just …. odd.

What you are saying is wrong, what you are doing is wrong, and I need to inform you that science denialists are not welcome here.

You are dismissed, sir.

In BOM’s 2012 yearly statement they released a couple days before the worst of the heatwave started they state that due to the near El Nino ENSO conditions over the last six months Australia saw higher than average temps and drier conditions. THIS IS NORMAL for positive ENSO conditions. Coupled with a higher than average Indian Ocean (which was heated up by the double-La Nino the preceding years) both the east and west of Australia dried up. Again, THIS IS NORMAL for those conditions.

Now we have a delayed monsoon (which BOM states runs from November 1) which hasn’t started yet. So it’s two months late. The lack of tropical cyclones, which pull the monsoon down over Australia, as well as the lack of Antarctic lows from the Southern Ocean, have combined to keep Australia from venting built up heat.

It’s a combination of bad lack.
1. Near El Nino conditions heat and dry the east.
2. A warm Indian Ocean (caused by the double La Nino) heat and dry the west.
3. The lack of tropical cyclones pulling the monsoon down (note it still hasn’t started two months after the start of monsoon season) stops the north and centre of the continent from venting heat.
4. The lack of Southern Ocean lows stops the south of the continent from venting heat.

Bad luck is NOT AGW.

Let’s be clear about the monsoon. There are those claiming that the reason it is hot in Australia is not because of climate change, but because of a delayed monsoon. That is not true. That the delayed monsoon is a factor isn’t really relevant to the fact that there is a denialist position that is making up a story for people who don’t want to believe in global warming to hold on to.

No one is saying that the monsoon, or natural variation in climate, are not factors.