NEW data has revealed 2013 to 2017 was the world’s hottest five-year period.
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Climate Council data shows last year was the third-hottest year ever recorded, and the hottest year where temperatures have not been boosted by an El Niño event.
El Niño refers to a sustained period of warming in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
The 2013-17 period was not only the hottest on record globally, but throughout Victoria and the Wimmera.
Bureau of Meteorology data shows the hottest day on record in the region in those five years was recorded at Hopetoun on February 9, 2017, when the mercury reached 46.2 degrees.
Longerenong recorded a top of 46 degrees on January 14, 2014.
Those temperatures are still some way off the hottest ever recorded temperature in the Wimmera, which came on February 7, 2009 – Black Saturday.
On that day, it reached 48.8 degrees at Hopetoun – a Victorian record – and 47 degrees in Horsham and at Longerenong.
Weather statistics compiled by Brett Allender show the past five-year period was the hottest Longerenong had ever experienced.
He said 2014 was the warmest individual year on record in the area.
“Each of the past five years at Longerenong have been between 0.5 and two degrees above average for maximum temperatures,” he said.
The Climate Council’s international climate scientist Professor Will Steffen said plenty of records were broken in the five-year period.
“In Australia, we are seeing the effects of intensifying climate change first-hand,” he said.
“We’ve seen records reach disappointing new heights in just 12 months, with more than 260 heat and low rainfall records smashed throughout one season of winter alone.”
Professor Steffen urged people to take care during the hot weather.
“Severe heatwaves are silent killers, causing more deaths since the 1890s than bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods and severe storms combined,” he said.
