The final months of the year in the Top End, known locally as "the build-up", are always swelteringly hot.
But this week is something different. The air is still, the sky is clear, the sun beats down onto the footpath and the storm clouds that usually provide much sought-after relief at this time of year are nowhere to be seen.
The temperatures have climbed so high that a heatwave has been declared for all regions of the Northern Territory, excluding the area surrounding Alice Springs, and an extreme heat "emergency" alert was issued by the health department on Thursday afternoon.
Even hardened Top End footy players, who are used to sweating through the NTFL season from October to March, will have their matches shortened this weekend because of the predicted conditions.
Residents across the territory are being advised to stay indoors in the air conditioning to avoid heat stress, with Darwin hitting tops of 35 degrees Celsius all week, and temperatures set to reach 45C in the remote communities of Lajamanu and Daguragu on Saturday.
As a result, there are even more people than usual seeking refuge from the sun during the day under trees scattered around Darwin's public parks.
Among them is Noel Nabegeyo, who is sitting at a shaded park bench painting. He has just been given a bottle of chilled water from a local Salvation Army volunteer — a necessity he otherwise could not afford while sleeping rough on Darwin's streets.
"'I've just got to go and look for the water in the tap," he says.
"I can't find it anywhere."
He's noticed the increase in temperature and the lack of breeze, but the advice issued by the government to "stay cool in air-conditioning" is of little help to him.
"I'm worried for it getting hot," he says.
"I'll go and look for the shelter, or even just shade."
But for weeks now, as people have travelled into town from remote communities for Christmas, all of Darwin's hostels and shelters have been full to the brim.
"As a result, the rough sleepers are stuck out in the heat," Jamie-Leigh Barnard, the regional manager for Salvation Army NT, says.
"We sometimes allow the rough sleepers to have a seat in the hostel where it's cool, but it's a very small space and there are not many organisations that have that option for them.
"We're just trying to hand out some cool water on a daily basis and we try to check up on them every day."
Heatwave to climb to 'extreme' level
The Bureau of Meteorology's Sally Cutter says a heatwave warning is triggered when there are consecutive days of "unusually hot" maximum and minimum temperatures. As in, unusually hot for the usual build-up conditions of temperatures above 30C and humidity levels that hover between 70 and 80 per cent.
As the high temperatures continue through the week, the heatwave warning for parts of the NT is set to climb from "severe" to "extreme" because of the impact prolonged heat has on human health.
"[The conditions mean] your body's been stressed during the day, and it doesn't really get the chance to recover fully overnight before you go into another hot day," Ms Cutter says.
Simon Quilty worked as a specialist physician across the NT for about two decades, and researches heat and health at the Australian National University.
He says First Nations people are disproportionately vulnerable when extreme weather events such as heatwaves strike. And it can have serious health impacts.
"[First Nations people] often face circumstances where they just don't have the capacity to shield from very hot weather," Dr Quilty says.
"And so, given the baseline of illnesses in this population is very high … [heat] exacerbates any of the healthcare conditions, particularly cardiac conditions, kidney conditions, and anything that requires medications that are needed to be stable."
He also says extreme heat comes at a "physiological cost".
"Our body has mechanisms to protect itself from environmental heat," he says.
"But once it is above that 35C in Darwin, where it's often very humid, the body's mechanisms for cooling get beyond thresholds of physiological capacity to overcome, and you start to get organ compromised."
'It's equally as dangerous as leaving a child in a car in summer'
Dr Quilty says the impact of hot weather can be exacerbated by the quality of public housing that so many First Nations remote community residents live in, including in areas that are set to reach 45C this weekend.
"Many of those houses that exist in remote communities, like Lajamanu, are not even insulated," he says.
"And so what happens to those houses in very hot weather is they actually contain the heat. It actually gets hotter on the inside of the house than on the outside of the house."
Dr Quilty says being inside such houses on days like those expected in the coming days can be "unbearable".
"I presume that if you spent more than a couple of hours inside some of those dwellings without air conditioning that you would die," he says.
"It's equally as dangerous as leaving a child in a car in summer."
In a statement, an NT government spokesperson said all remote homes were "required to achieve the silver standard of the Liveable Housing Design Guidelines".
"Regardless of construction method, blockwork or modular, all houses are built in accordance with the National Construction Code and designed to be robust, maintainable and adaptable in the future and meet health, safety and security requirements," the spokesperson said.
"All new homes are designed to handle local climatic conditions which can include extreme heat and extreme cold depending on location. This is achieved by incorporating passive energy design principles making for comfortable and energy efficient homes with features like large verandahs."
They also said a new program to install split-system air conditioning in the living rooms of all new remote public houses was being implemented.
