Wow, what a totally insane 4 or 5 days it has been here in Sydney. I work for the Department of Environment and share a work place with some of the leading people on bushfires so it has been just crazy.

Something had to give, we have been smashing heat records all year long, just about every month has been hotter than normal this year. Added to that it stopped raining in ealy July. I have recorded just 9mm of rain in 3.5 months which makes the bush a tinder box. I went for a bush  walk in early September in the Blue Mountains and I came back shocked at how dry it was.

I have been around Sydney on and off since 2002 and never seen it this bad so early in spring, this is the kind of situation you expect around new years. But even then only on a couple of occasions have I seen it this bad. The smoke from the fires blotted out the sun on Thursday and covered the entire Sydney basin! Over 200 houses lost so far and 1 death. Just to give you an idea of the size of these fires, the Lithgow State Mine fire has a front streatching just over 300k's!!!

Lack of cloud cover over the northern part of Australia is just letting the heat build. Add to that a displaced high pressure belt that is constantly dragging down this hot and very dry air over NSW.

Summer in Sydney is dominated by onshore easterlies so can actually be quite wet, that is the reason the bushfire season usually ends around Christmas over NSW. Models are suggesting that the high pressure belt will slip back south meaning that the hot NW wind will be cut off and easterlies would dominate for the rest of the late spring / summer period. I wouldn't be surprised if the hot temps we have recoded in October turn out to be the hottest until spring next year.

Tomorrow is going to be difficult again as it is predicted to reach 38c in the west of Sydney. Then a southerly change will hit Monday evening which will cool things down but will create a new fire front which is a nightmare for the firefighters. Rain that was originally forecast for Tuesday / Wednesday has been downgraded to a few showers only, that is really difficult to take as that was a big hope.

Photos here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-24594773

It sounds horrendous.  I wasn't aware of the scale of the problem - as you say, almost 200 miles is a long way.  In UK terms that's London to Manchester.

I do hope they manage to get some control - it doesn't look as if the weather will come to the rescue anytime soon. 

Take care.

The whole of the Blue Mountains area is now on a state of emergency and even the bigger townships like Katoomba, Leura and Blackheath could be facing evacuation! http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/state-of-emergency-declared-as-bushfire-conditions-worsen-20131020-2vuqu.html

The worry is that the massive fire near Lithgow and another fire near Mt Victoria will join togather and create what they are calling a mega fire that could potentially burn right through the mountains and to the western suburbs of Sydney! That is the worst case scenario. The problem is there are so many gullies in the mountains that the fire is burning in, these are impossible to reach.

An orange sky over Sydney again this morning just to the smoke haze filtering out the sun light.

Wednesday is looking like the worst weather day this week.