But to the south, Melbourne was far, far hotter and the City was suffering significant power shortages as the overloaded power grid struggled to meet the electricity demands generated by the heat. Melbourne's rail service ground to a halt under a combination of the heat and the power outages.
A significant part of the City was affected by power cuts. And at least on 30 January the power blackout was matched by an Internet blackout.
Only two of the five power utilities servicing Melbourne had up to date outage information on their websites. Well done to those two - Jemena and SP AUSNET. For the others, well it was business as usual.
The Victorian Government Internet portal carried dated information. And the websites of the Victorian Police and the State's Emergency Service had no current news on the outages.
Although local newspapers and other media carried news, key corporate and government websites were strangely silent on an event that impacted on so many people including concerned relatives like me in other States.
Victoria gets a "could do better" grade for its effort to use the online communications to keep Melbournians updated on what was happening in their sweltering off-line world.