Australia

Sunny weather dominates South Australia, Victoria and southern New South Wales as the heat wave continues. Solar radiation and northerly winds have caused much higher than usual daytime temperatures around these states.

Australians are in for another heat wave with temperatures surging into the 40s C. From today along the south coast of Australia, facing the Great Australian Bight, temperatures will rise 8C or more above average and particularly coastal area of SA could reach 40C at many places.

Tropical Cyclone Joyce is located to the southeast of Port Hedland, Western Australia as of 11am NZT.

The cyclone is gradually decaying after landfall yesterday but still keeps Category 1 intensity for now.

There is still the risk of flooding due to very heavy rain accumulation along the track through the western Pilbara and Gascoyne.

Tropical Cyclone Joyce is located in the north sea of Western Australia and over the past six hours is slowly moving southward.

Here's the latest on the storm:

Penrith in Sydney's west has reached a top of 47.3 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature recorded by a weather station in the Sydney metropolitan area in 79 years.

The temperature hit 47.3C at Penrith just after 3:00pm on Sunday.

EXTENSIVE REPORT - UPDATED: A low is today forming offshore from Brisbane and is heading towards New Zealand, rapidly deepening, intensifying and reaching our shores by Thursday PM, air pressure down to 976hPa or maybe lower by early Friday morning.

High pressure pushes across New Zealand this weekend but by Christmas Day both Australia and New Zealand will be dealing with a cold front bringing rain and showers. 

This cold front heads north later in the day and across Boxing Day.

Here's where the rain, showers, clouds and thunderstorms are likely to lie over the coming days:

New Zealand has recently had a heatwave - and now a large portion of Australia is being affected by heatwave conditions this week. But are all heatwaves the same? Are they worth all the attention, or are they just normal summer weather? And can a heatwave be relative to where you are? Weatherzone digs down and explains:

The England cricket team may feel more at home, as conditions turn wet and very windy for the end of the third test.

A deep low pressure system will cause winds will pick up from the southwest through Sunday, gusting above 80km/h by the late-afternoon, around the time rain will commence. 

Another round of intense heat is about to sweep across southern and eastern Australia, challenging December heat records for the second time in a week.

A burst of hot weather swept across southeastern Australia this week, prompting fire bans in a number of states.