THE HOTTEST day of 2024 has been recorded in Newcastle.
The temperature climbed to 36.2 degrees at the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) weather station at Nobbys about 1pm on January 21.
It had shaped up to be a hot day from early on, with the mercury cracking the 30-degree mark before 11am.
If you felt like you sweltered through Sunday, you're not wrong - it was the hottest day Newcastle has seen so far this year.
The maximum temperature this month has been hovering about the mid-20s, before hotter conditions set in and the mercury reached 32.5 degrees on Thursday.
In January 2023, not a single day slipped into the 30s.
The warm, dry and sunny Sunday sent crowds flocking to the city's beaches and pools to cool down.
While Wednesday and Thursday were particularly warm, with highs of 29.3 and 32.5, a BOM spokesperson last week warned Sunday would be standout.
A southerly change on Monday is set to cool things off again on the coast, a BOM spokesperson said at the time.
The east coast is set to be dry and warm for much of this week, with maximum temperatures of about 26 degrees until Wednesday, when it could climb back into the 30s.
Rain could start to fall by Friday and Saturday.
Parts of Western Australia were tipped to reach up to 50 degrees over the weekend or early this week, and the BOM's Dean Narramore said that heat will then move across the rest of the country to the east.
