No surprises here, but on the back of the hottest Dec ever, Australia just recorded its hottest January on record - in fact it was the hottest month on record. Included records for the hottest minimums, maximums, and average.

Apart from the fires in Vic and Tas, which risk flaring up again in the next two days, there has been a massive fish kill in some of the major river systems - another 'canary in the cage' scenario.

The lack of rain (plus bureaucratic bungling regarding reservoir releases and over-irrigation) causes the rivers to barely flow then the extreme heat causes an algae bloom - then the temps crash (in the south temps typically rise and fall - max of 40 one day then down to a minimum of 10 a couple of days later), whereupon the algae dies, which de-oxygenates the water - which causes the fish to die. In their millions.

It was an appalling sight - some of these fish are 50 years old - huge native cod over a metre long - it's heart breaking to see them all dying - they've survived pretty much everything to get to that size.