Guests at Dubbo’s Melbourne Cup meet scorched in the sun, but there were plenty of tents and an undercover area to get away from the heat.

Dubbo was the third hottest area in the State behind Williamtown and Sydney yesterday and is forecast to be the second hottest behind Bourke today.

Jess Roche said she was “not coping very well” at the races with the sun scorching the course, but was still enjoying the day, while Sue Lomax said she did not even find it hot.

“I’m from Darwin,” she said. “This is nothing for me.”

Ben O’Brien said the heat was “great” but he wasn’t planning on spending much of the day out of the shade.

Mitch Griffiths said he was “struggling” with the heat.

“The flies are terrible, they’re driving everyone crazy,” he said.

Doug Malone said the weather was “beautiful” but he was struggling a bit with the heat.

And Kirsty Colliver said she had been out in the sun and it was so hot she went back into the shade.

After Dubbo Derby Day’s humidity, the dry heat yesterday was a bit easier to cope with, according to some Melbourne Cup meet guests.

The heat is expected to continue throughout the rest of the week with maximum temperatures of 30 and 31 degrees.

Today is forecast to be 16 to 30 degrees with tomorrow at 13 to 29. Friday and Sunday are expected to reach 31 degrees and Saturday is a maximum forecast of 30.

The UV index is recording “very high” all this week according to the Bureau of Meteorology and the chance of rain will be down to 5 per cent by the end of the week.

Humidity is expected to be at 50 per cent today and then down to 29 per cent tomorrow.

Then it will be back up to nearly 70 per cent on Friday.

But the worst is yet to come and according to the bureau, it’s likely to be a hot summer. According to Alison Skinn from the bureau, there is a 70 per cent chance temperatures will exceed the average maximum between now and December.

“You can expect a warm end to the year,” she said.

The average for November is 29 degrees and 31.9 in December, but “they’re numbers we’re looking at breaking in the next few months”, Ms Skinn said.

carly.dolan@ruralpress.co m