Severe February heat across South Australia reaches 109°F in Adelaide and 110°F at Port Pirie

The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide) Mon 7 Feb 1876: ‘Moonta, February 7. The weather here, till last night [6 Feb], was fearfully hot, the thermometer registering 310 in the shade. Extensive fires have been raging in the neighborhood of Penang and Kalkabury amidst the farms. Considerable damage has been done. A large amount of fencing is burnt. The fire extended 16 miles from north to south, and 10 from east to west’.

The Narracoorte Herald (SA) Tue 8 Feb 1876: ‘Kingston 5 February –every topic, however, pales before that of the heat of the weather, which has for the last fortnight been intense. Fortunately, the sea-beach affords a source of relief after an extra roasting day, which is thoroughly appreciated by the bathing portion of the community; indeed, the ‘saline aquarians’ turn out so numerously of an evening that for some hours after sunset, in the vicinity of the jetty, the shoal fish have hardly room enough to swim for the bathers who are doing likewise. I trust, however, a change in the weather is not far distant, and am sure that whenever a shower does come it will undoubtedly be the reigning theme’.

Evening Journal (Adelaide) Tue 8 Feb 1876: ‘Our meteorological table shows a maximum temperature of 109° in the shade, as registered on Saturday [5 Feb] last at the Observatory, the maximum in the sun having been 156° 6′. This is, we believe, the greatest heat registered since January 20,1875, when the thermometer stood at 109°5′ in the shade and 161° 6′ in the sun’.

Northern Argus (Clare) Tue 8 Feb 1876: ‘The weather has been so frightfully hot of late that I could neither write by day nor sleep by night. On the areas very little work has been done during1 the past fortnight. The farmers have their crops pretty well secured, and have acted, very sensibly in taking what rest they could while the hot weather lasted. Working cattle have fallen off in condition in consequence of the long hours in the yoke, little water, and a broiling sun’.

Yorke’s Peninsula Advertiser and Miners’ and Farmers’ Journal, Tue 8 Feb 1876: ‘The terrific heat which characterised the weather last week was succeeded on Sunday [6 Feb] evening by a furious squall from the westward, which enveloped the district in dense clouds of dust. During the night a most refreshing change occurred in the temperature, a cool breeze set in. and a few slight showers of rain fell. On the following day the breeze increased to a gale, accompanied by a disagreeable quantity of dust’.

Kapunda Herald and Northern Intelligencer, Tue 8 Feb 1876: ‘Port Pirie Gazette –During the past fortnight, the weather has been most oppressive. One day last week we had occasion to move a piece of sperm candle from one position in. our office to another, and, about an hour after, on seeking for it in the place we had left, to our astonishment it was no more! It had completely melted. The perspiration poured off us in streams, and a perfect deluge in our boots was the result. The thermometer in the Bank of Adelaide about 3 o’clock on Saturday afternoon, stood at 110. A change came about 3.30. on that afternoon, in the shape of a dust storm, and on Sunday the wind blew from the south-west, cooling the atmosphere to an appreciable degree. We have heard of grease spots being all that have been left of persons after excessive heat, and we can quite understand the sensation after the weather of the past fortnight’.

Border Watch (Mount Gambier, SA) Wed 9 Feb 1876: ‘The Advertiser, after referring to several deaths in Adelaide, caused by the recent heat, contends that the majority of the dwelling houses in the city are more or less unsuited to a hot climate. This it remarks, ‘may be easily accounted for. Notwithstanding the excessive heat we have at times to endure in this part of Australia, the total number of extremely hot days is small. We have each summer a few spells of burning weather, lasting from three to ton days, and then a change comes, and we soon forget all about our discomfort. Had we several months’ continuance of; oppressive, heat we would build a different class of houses from those in Adelaide’. It strongly urges the building of goodly sized bedrooms, with extensive ventilation as ‘persons in this colony who are dangerously ill are sometimes killed by the heat of their dwellings, or are deprived by that cause of any chance of recovery’’.

The South Australian Advertiser (Adelaide) Wed 9 Feb 1876: ‘As a rule the would be suicide is not particular by what means he makes his exit from this world.” remarks the Melbourne Telegraph of February 3, “but it is somewhat significant to find that the hot weather invariably causes a large increase in the vital statistics, and more especially in that gloomy column devoted to ‘bodies found drowned’’.