Hay’s airport reached an uncomfortable 47.9 degrees on Saturday, the hottest temperature in the 56 years official temperature records have been kept.

The town’s previous hottest day was on February 1, 1968 when the town sweltered to 47.2 degrees.

The heat was relentless on Saturday in Wagga with the city’s lowest point of 24.9 degrees arriving at 7.55am before the oven was cranked up to 43.5 degrees at 3.56pm.

That maximum temperature is just shy of the all-time record in the city, which traces back to February 7, 2009 when the mercury rose to 45.2 degrees.

The hottest temperature ever recorded in the month of January was in 2001 when it reached 44.8 degrees.

Yesterday was a little bit lower in the city with the maximum temperature recorded at 42.7 degrees at 4.34pm.

With the 40-plus trend expected to continue until Tuesday, this will also be the first time Wagga has had such high temperatures four days in a row since February 2009.

Records were broken throughout the Riverina on Saturday with Narrandera recording its hottest day in 17 years when it reached 45.3 degrees.

The figure of 43.4 degrees in Albury was also the hottest temperature reached in 20 years while Tumbarumba’s reading of 40.0 was the highest number recorded in 46 years.

Nigel Smedley from The Bureau of Meteorology Wagga office said many towns would have had close to their record January temperatures.

Technical officer from the bureau, Bruce Copplestone, said the scorching temperatures so far were 10 degrees above the mean average for January.

“We’ve got a very slow high-pressure system and that’s stopping colder air pushing up over the state,” he said.

“So far the mean for this month is 37.5 degrees.”

Harvey Norman electrical appliance section franchisee Scott Purcell said Wagga residents had been flocking into his store to buy fans and air conditioners because of the extreme heat.

On Saturday alone he sold 50 fans and 27 air conditioners - more than he sold in all of January 2012.