Winter has North America and parts of Europe and Asia firmly in its grip, while on the other side of the globe, scorching heat is dominating the weather.

The reason: it is now midsummer in the southern hemisphere, with temperatures peaking at around or even well above 40 °C.

It is currently hottest in South Australia, where Port Augusta broke the 50-degree mark on Friday. This is a new heat record for the city and already close to the Australian all-time record of 50.7 °C set in 1960 and 2019.

But it's not just Australia – South America and southern Africa are also experiencing midsummer heat at the moment. Maximum temperatures there are hovering around 40 °C these days, sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower.

The cause of the sometimes extreme heat on the southern continents is not only the fact that it is currently midsummer there, but also progressive global warming, which is producing increasingly frequent and intense heat waves.