It’s super-hot in Australia right now: there are massive bushfires happening spontaneously, and it’s 35C in Sydney at midnight. In fact, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has recorded the highest ever known temperature in Australia. As a result, it’s had to add new colours to its weather maps.
The purple spot in the centre of the country represents the new high temperature of 54C. It’s a brand new colour to the scale, prompted by the crazy temperatures being experienced in Australia. The previous high, recorded in 1960, was 50.7C. There’s currently no word on what the next colour might be, but presumably by the time we get there we’ll all have melted into puddles of goo, so it won’t really matter. [Sydney Morning Herald via Atlantic Wire]