If, as is often the case, Australia's weather patterns mimic what has happened in the northern hemisphere over the previous six months, this country will be in for another very challenging summer.
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While recent weeks have been invigoratingly cold and wet, we are just a few weeks away from spring, apparently the new bushfire season if what happened in 2019 is a precedent.
Given this, it is far from comforting to realise that while Canberrans have been enjoying a comparatively mild winter, both Britain and Japan are in the grip of record-breaking heatwaves that have brought gale force winds to the UK and what one motorist described as "an apocalyptic downpour" in their wake.
Temperatures in Hamamatsu, a coastal city on Honshu, peaked at 41.1 degrees on Monday. This equalled the national record set just two years ago. The latest outbreak of extreme temperatures in Japan, once considered remarkable for August, comes almost exactly one year after the 2019 heatwave that killed 57 people and hospitalised another 18,000.
London recorded temperatures above 34 degrees for six days in a row last week, the first time this has happened since 1961.
Closer to home, California's iconic Death Valley logged what is possibly the highest definitive temperature ever recorded on planet Earth of 54.44 degrees on Monday, Australian time. While not as high as the 56.66 degrees recorded in the valley in 1913, or the 55 degrees recorded in Tunisia in 1931, Monday's reading was confirmed by state-of-the-art equipment. Scientists have grave reservations about the accuracy of the historical readings.
There is no guarantee that just because last year was so devastating nature will give south-eastern Australia a reprieve this time around.
The northern hemisphere heatwave has brought dramatic consequences to Europe and the US, including a dramatic pyrocumulonimbus "wildfire tornado" that threatened a small town in Colorado. This was the same phenomenon observed in Canberra during the 2003 bushfires. A similar "firenado" was blamed for the death of an Australian firefighter last December.
America is not the only country that has experienced serious fires. More than 10,000 people were evacuated from France's Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region in July. Parts of Spain are currently ablaze, with 25 residents forced to evacuate their homes earlier this week.
In addition to reinforcing the need to act urgently on climate change, the developments in the northern hemisphere are a timely reminder of how vital it is for governments, communities, and individuals to ensure they are prepared for the coming fire season.
While the recent rains have been very welcome, they will be followed by rapid regrowth that has the potential to fuel more catastrophic blazes along the coast and in the ACT's national parks as it temperatures climb and it dries off.
There is no guarantee that just because last year was so devastating nature will give south-eastern Australia a reprieve this time around.
It is also essential that the lessons learnt just six months ago are applied to protecting the vulnerable from high temperatures and possible smoke exposure.
One issue that will need to be taken into account is that if, as some states are saying, their borders won't be reopened for months, it is going to be very hard to ship firefighters, and their equipment, from one end of the country to the other this time around.
It would also be much harder to bring in firefighting aircraft from the US given the current ban on international arrivals.
All of these factors need to be considered as a matter of urgency.
