THE heat is certainly on.
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Most of NSW will continue to bake in a prolonged heatwave into the first half of this week, the second big warm event of the new year.
In Orange, the mercury was tipped to climb to 35 degrees on Monday, the third consecutive day it hit that mark.
A cool change that moved across southern Victoria over the weekend, but that change will stall over NSW and central Australia “due to no systems moving in to displace this hot air”, said Grace Legge, a meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology.
The temperature is predicted to hit 34 degrees in Orange on both Tuesday and Wednesday, but that’s reasonably mild compared to what’s in store for other parts of the state.
Bourke is forecast to hit a sweltering 45 degrees on Tuesday, Sydney suburbs such as Penrith and Richmond won't be far behind at 43, with Dubbo set for a stifling 41 degrees.
The roasting comes after the state posted its hottest year on record in 2017, a period which was also Australia's third-hottest year and equal-second warmest globally.