Friday 30th January 2009 – The 3rd day in Melbourne’s long running heatwave above 40 degrees Celsius reached a top temperature of 44.9C making it Melbourne’s 2nd hottest day on record.

To make matters worse, Friday afternoon an electrical substation in Melbourne’s west exploded causing widespread power loss to the area resulting in an increase in train cancellations and affecting 500,000 homes and businesses in the area.

It was an excruciatingly hot day, and without power there was no relief from any of it.

There were also reports of blackouts in the Melbourne CBD that night. My place of employment was affected by this quite substantially when our servers providing essential services (mail, file server, blackberry) were taken offline.

The damage to lines and the substation is not expected to be repaired until after the weekend, Tuesday at the very latest. The weather forecast for Melbourne this week is cooler than last week and thank god for that…much cooler!

Source: Weather Channel Australia

My fellow Melbournians, relief will soon be here, soon enough!