Here's why it's not all bad during this Bathurst heatwave

Weatherzone meteorologist Aline Ribeiro says the gap between Bathurst's maximums and minimums will be unusually large this week.

And the reason? Clear skies.

"Cloud works like a cover and keeps the heat during the night," she said. "When you have cloud, the gap [between maximums and minimums] is low.

"With clear skies, you normally have a big gap."

Bathurst got to 31 degrees on Monday and 31.7 degrees on Tuesday, but started the days at 8.5 and 10.4 degrees respectively.

Monday and Tuesday are forecast to be the first two of nine straight days of temperatures of 30 degrees or above.

It will easily outdo the best effort last summer, when Bathurst had two consecutive 30-degree days in mid-January, bookended by maximums of 28 and 21.8.

While this week is going to continue to be hot - and gardens will be suffering during the day - the overnight minimums are forecast to range only from 11 degrees to 14 degrees until a 15-degree start to the day on Monday.

Rewind to last January and Bathurst had minimums of 16 degrees and above for seven out of 10 days in the first half of January and 17.5 degrees on January 18.

Ms Ribeiro said Thursday or Friday are a good chance of setting a new highest temperature for this summer and last summer for Bathurst (the current record holder is 31.8 degrees about a fortnight ago).

She said there is a chance of a late shower for Bathurst on Friday and a chance for showers again on Sunday afternoon and evening.

Bathurst's highest January minimum is 26.9 degrees, recorded back in the 1930s, and the record for February is 25.5 degrees, which came as recently as 2020.

For the other end of the scale, Bathurst was only 7.8 degrees last Friday morning.

Close to Bathurst, Orange hit 30 degrees on Tuesday - the first time in almost two years that the city had hit that mark.