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TRANSCRIPT
"The only way to describe it is just - it's a dry heat. It's not really humid. It's a dry heat. You stand out in it, it's just hot."
Meet Emily Dalton.
She runs a pub with her family at Ouyen, a small town roughly an hour south of Mildura, in far north-western Victoria.
Ouyen falls under the purview of the Mildura Rural City Council, a local government area comprising almost ten per cent of the state and which lately, according to Victoria's Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Weibusch, has been one of the hottest around.
"We're obviously expecting extremely hot conditions right across the state, both in the north and the south today, with Melbourne expecting a forecast temp of 45 degrees, and in the northwest of the state, 49 degrees at both Ouyen and Mildura."
That was the day after Australia Day, and for Mildura it became the hottest day on record.
The nearby towns of Walpeup and Hopetoun also broke records, posting Victoria's all-time hottest temperatures.
But that wasn't the end of the story.
Mildura then had a heatwave, hitting temperatures above 40 degrees for the rest of the week, which Mildura Mayor Ali Cupper says is on another level.
“The official temperature recorded - as in the high point - temperature recorded was 48.9. And temperature is of course recorded in the shade. So people's cars were showing 50 degrees. And that's hot - even for us."
In Ouyen, Emily Dalton says the locals coped the best they could.
"There's a few people at the pub. I think a lot of people are at home under their air cons though, and there's a fair few people down at the lake."
That's also how residents in Mildura itself approached the heat, many bunkering down in air-conditioned homes during the warmest part of the day.
The Council says it did its part by providing designated cooling spaces, extending opening hours in some publicly run facilities, and highlighting its heat awareness campaigns.
Mayor Ali Cupper says that they have long made a point of including messaging on heat stress to reach the estimated 79 diverse nationalities that live in Mildura.
"When it gets really hot the river can be a magnet almost to go and get some respite from the heat. But unless you've lived here for a while, the river can be quite deceptive. It looks a lot safer than it is... We've had very tragically over time some drownings of people who are new arrivals and who are recent immigrants or refugees. And so we've really made a point of providing that education."
She says for many locals, hot temperatures like this - and these kinds of adjustments - are par for the course.
"Well, what's the alternative?... I mean yeah, that's right. Yeah, we adapt. And of course... there's been human inhabitants of this region for many tens of thousands of years. And then even since colonisation, for generations there was no air conditioning. And it's always been hot."
But experts are in broad agreement that these heatwaves are intensifying, with multiple reports and studies blaming a worsening climate change situation for the trend.
That includes a report from the Australian Climate Service in December 2025 that Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said offered an idea of what the future might look like, without urgent action to drastically lower greenhouse gas emissions.
"Cascading, it will get worse over time. Compounding, each impact of climate change will make another impact worse. And concurrent, communities will suffer the impacts of climate change in different ways at the same time - and we'll have a lot to manage."
That means essentially it's not the last heatwave Mildura or other regional communities can expect to see - and that there could be impacts to be felt far and wide.
To begin with, Victoria's Chief Health Officer Dr Caroline McElnay says it's not just a matter of people simply being uncomfortable.
She says heatwaves can literally be a matter of life and death, with extreme heat responsible for more mortalities in Australia than bushfires, cyclones, and floods combined.
"We know that prolonged heat can affect anyone, and when high heat continues for a number of days it can affect your health and make some people seriously unwell. Those most at risk are those over the age of 65, those with underlying health conditions, pregnant women, babies and children."
There are other concerns too.
Mildura is at the heart of the Lower Murray River region, an ecosystem that supports a range of wildlife and livelihoods, and which Environment Minister Murray Watt has just listed as critically endangered.
"The listing provides important recognition that despite the efforts of governments and communities, the Lower Murray remains under great stress, and that we need to do more to restore it and protect it."
A study published in January in the Urban Sustainability journal** analysed large-scale bank card transaction data and daily temperature records in Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide.
It found extreme heat events are driving substantial time-of-day shifts in consumer spending behaviour - and there's evidence of a similar trend in Mildura.
Some businesses posted on social media that they would be closing early in the heat, while other shops in the town centre put signs on their doors.
There was almost no-one on the streets after the morning peak.
For those businesses that did stay open, Matt, from the Boathouse cafe on the banks of the Murray River, says it was unusually quiet.
"Not good. This time of year we're usually thriving. Plenty of staff on and plenty of work and plenty of customers enjoying the view. But yeah, this heatwave... I don't blame anyone. With it over 40 degrees it's a bit too hot to go out."
Those providing essential services have had no choice however but to keep going.
Public libraries are traditionally valued and important places of social connection, offering not just books but access to technology and community programs.
The libraries that operate across Mildura are no exception.
They stayed open as the temperature rose outside, though their rural outreach service had to be cancelled during the heatwave because of safety concerns.
Meanwhile, the Clinical Practice Manager for the Mallee District Aboriginal Service in Mildura, Steven Bowden, told NITV they got through by changing their standard operating procedures.
"All the mums and bubs that are coming in to see our KMS team and our maternal child health nurses, (we) rang them and said you know, we'll change those appointments to the morning or we'll come and see them to save mum and bub coming out in the heat... Then with our chronic disease team, our ICT program, they're doing all the medication runs first thing in the morning."
Agriculture is a big part of Mildura.
Around $1.1 billion is generated in gross agricultural production revenue every year - the most for any Australian local government area.
The Grewal family, originally from the Punjab in India, run a farming operation near Mildura, producing around 10,000 tonnes of wheat a year at Golden Grain Mills to supply Indian grocery stores and restaurants across Australia.
Aman Grewal told SBS Punjabi that climate change is an ever-present concern for them.
"Water availability and climate issues affect farming. Overall, farming is a bit of a challenge, especially in Australia when there is a lot of drought."
The Mayor says part of their planning is thinking about how the local economy might be impacted if there are significant changes in the current climate.
"Certainly with wheat the heat doesn't matter because the harvest has already happened. In terms of grapes, heat is good - like dry heat is okay, I mean, especially if you're drying fruit. Humidity is a problem - if we've got sort of humid type heat - because that can create outbreaks of disease... And so we're in the eye of the storm in many ways. They talk about climate moving south, which means that if we increasingly kind of have the climate of Wilcannia - that western NSW desert - it's going to much harder to grow what we grow, and our economy is fundamentally based on primary production and horticulture."
Ali Cupper says it's not just about protecting the economy though.
She says the Council is well aware of the science on climate change, and accepts it.
Officials have been devoting extra energy to figuring out what kind of emissions the Council is responsible for, and working out ways to mitigate them at a local level.
And in February 2020, Mildura Rural City Council declared a climate emergency - despite the scepticism the Mayor says others have expressed.
"You know, you talk to people who have been farming the land for a very long time and they will say it's different to what it was when they were kids. There can be a reluctance in some quarters to accept climate science and to accept the realities. You know, I've always said we need to be really need to be honest with ourselves about those realities and those risks."
In the meantime, life goes on.
Emily Dalton's daughter Violet has returned to school, albeit reluctantly.
"Like, I'm excited to see my friends again, but I'm also like - I don't want to learn in this hot, sticky weather."
And Kamaljit Grewal says the family intends to keep overcoming the challenges they face.
"We grew up doing farm work alongside our parents and cousins while studying. I feel proud to say that now our next generation - our children - are also following the same path. We are carrying forward the work of our ancestors."
