Oodnadatta: The Hottest Place In Australia
Kr.afol/Wikimedia CommonsOodnadatta is one of the hottest places in Australia, and its summers can be hard to bear.
In January 1960, the tiny Australian town of Oodnadatta smashed national records when it recorded a temperature of 123 degrees Fahrenheit (a record later matched by the town of Onslow in 2022).
Located in the Outback, hundreds of miles northwest of the southern coastal city of Adelaide, Oodnadatta stays fairly hot all year round. During the summer, temperatures often average in the high 80s, and even the cooler months get down to just the 50s.
Throughout those hot months, locals adjust their schedules. As Reuters reported in 2019, people often work early in the morning or late in the afternoon, so that they can avoid the unforgiving heat of midday.
Wikimedia CommonsThe flat, arid landscape of Oodnadatta, one of the hottest places in the world.
“People say to me they love summer. If you love summer, come out and experience this because you will not love it,” a local told Reuters, adding: “I grew up here, I’m used to the heat. You cope but it’s not fun.”
Nevertheless, Oodnadatta is seemingly proud to be one of the hottest places in Australia. There is purportedly a sign in town that reads: “The driest town, the driest state of the driest Continent.”
Oodnadatta was established in the mid-19th century as a settlement for the camel riders who were brought in from the Indian subcontinent to carry goods across the blazing sands to the European pioneers who were then settling the area. To this day, a small community still exists there, a tiny town of just 100 people that remains isolated in the remote furnace of the Outback.
