by Levi J Parsons
SYDNEY, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Australia is sweltering under an immense heatwave on Thursday with temperatures getting close to 50 degrees Celsius.
"In the middle levels of our atmosphere we are seeing a ridge which has been very stable for the last couple of weeks and it's prevented cold fronts from moving through inland parts of the country and flushing out the heat," Australian Bureau of Meteorology Senior Weather Forecaster Jenny Sturrock told Xinhua.
"We've seen inland troughs waving making cold fronts pass further south and this has dragged that bubble of heat back through south eastern parts of New South Wales and right through South Australia, Victoria and Southern parts of New South Wales."
This week's scorching weather has affected regions across the nation, in the Hunter Valley area, 200 km north of Sydney, a football match has been postponed from Saturday to Monday.
"Today's forecast leaves no doubt that the conditions on Saturday in Newcastle will be significantly above the thresholds we have in place under the FFA Heat Policy so we have made the decision to move the Newcastle v Melbourne Victory match," Head of the Hyundai A-League Greg O'Rourke said.
"Taking into consideration the obvious player welfare concerns as well as the need to give players, teams and fans the best possible opportunity to plan for the match, moving the match to Monday night is the only decision we could make."
"We have spoken to both clubs who have welcomed the decision."
The township of Maitland, 30 km away from where the game was originally scheduled, reached 46.5 degrees Celsius Thursday.
Many towns in Northern Australia, Queensland and Victoria are experiencing similar highs and some schools are enforcing strict heat safety policies, not allowing children to go outside.
Near the city of Perth in Western Australia, 130 firefighters are trying to contain out-of-control bush-fires that are threatening homes and property.
Meanwhile, in South Australia, as the mercury reached more than 40 degrees Celsius on Wednesday night, heat-stricken residents were left fuming when power was cut to 45,000 homes in order to protect the electricity grid, which the national regulator feared would overload due to too many people using air conditioning.
Even the prime minister was not immune to the pitfalls of the extreme conditions after a giant sinkhole collapsed the sidewalk Wednesday, less than a km away from Malcolm Turnbull's harbor-side residence.
Although the cause of the incident is not fully understood by investigators, the high temperatures followed by severe rainfall are thought to have contributed to the phenomenon.
"In the short to medium term, we're not going to see a significant disturbance of the heat, the next cold front coming through will occur on the weekend, although this will ease temperatures which are around 10 degrees above average, it will still be around the 40 degree mark in some places," Sturrock said.
