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January 25, 2026 — 2:42pm
Brisbane will sizzle through the last day of the school holidays with a 27-year record likely to be broken as severe heatwave conditions sweep across the city for Monday’s Australia Day public holiday.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a heatwave warning on Saturday afternoon for most of Australia’s east coast up to the Wide Bay region, with low-to-severe heatwave conditions expected in Brisbane and the south-east “well into next week”.
Senior meteorologist Christine Johnson said Brisbane could expect the hottest Australia Day this century, adding the last time the public holiday was “similarly hot” was in 1998.
The weather bureau said Brisbane’s built areas could expect conditions in the mid-to-high 30s on Sunday and Monday, with the CBD hitting 33 degrees during Sunday’s peak and 37 on Monday.
Suburbs to the city’s south and south-west were forecast to reach up to 39 – including St Lucia, Darra, and Salisbury – and similar temperatures were expected out to Ipswich and Beaudesert.
On Monday, the Sunshine Coast was expected to heat up to about 34 degrees, while the Gold Coast was forecast to reach 37.
Johnson said the conditions came from a low-pressure trough sweeping heat eastward from Western Australia, where it had built up all last week.
“The trough ... is now lingering over inland South Australia and Victoria, maintaining very hot air over NSW and southern Queensland,” she said.
From Wednesday, the heatwave conditions were expected to ease near the coast, including in Brisbane, but would linger in inland regions, where temperatures would likely remain above 40 until about Thursday.
For coastal regions, Johnson said a cold front coming from the south would swing winds south-east, lowering temperatures but also bringing the chance of thunderstorms across next weekend.
She said storms posed a risk of locally heavy rainfall and damaging winds, but the most intense rainfall was expected south-west of Brisbane, along the Scenic Rim.
The same heatwave conditions were forecast to bring Victoria its hottest day ever, with parts of the state expected to hit 50 degrees.
Victorian Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch warned parts of the state were expected to remain hotter than 40 degrees for up to seven consecutive days, likening the hot, dry conditions to those prevalent during 2009’s Black Saturday bushfires.
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