Sydney sweltered through a spring day that saw the mercury hit 37 degrees in the CBD and brush 40 degrees in the west of the city after a mass of hot, dry air from inland Australia swept in, shattering heat records for October in parts of the state.

As people dashed to the water, or sheltered inside offices and shopping centres, a powerful front with wind gusts of up to 80km/h dragged heat from the continent’s arid interior towards the coast.

In the CBD, Wednesday’s temperature was just shy of the all-time October record, 38.2 degrees set in 2004, after the temperature climbed more than 10 degrees in just one hour. It was 16 degrees hotter than the average day at this time of year in Sydney.

Further west and outside the city, a host of monthly records fell.

Bankstown Airport recorded 3

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