AAP Sleepless residents flocked to Melbourne's beaches as the city sweltered through a hot night.Melburnians have sweated through a hot night, with temperatures staying above 30C until shortly before sunrise.
People flocked to bayside beaches as sleeping proved difficult with the temperature still above 35C at midnight (AEDT).
It briefly dropped below 30C shortly after 5am, but by 8am it was back up to 33C.
Temperatures are expected to reach 41C on Wednesday, which is the second of four days predicted to be above 40C.
It will be the first time the city has endured such a heatwave since 1908, when there was a five-day streak above 40C, Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Stuart Coombs said on Tuesday.
"It would go down as the second longest run of 40s since records started in 1835 in Melbourne," he said.
The city reached 42.8C on Tuesday, while Charlton in the state's northwest recorded 46.5C.
At the Australian Open tennis a player hallucinated that he saw Snoopy on court before he fainted mid-match.
A ball boy collapsed and water bottles melted on court as the tournament sizzled in extreme heat.
The heat has driven the highest electricity demand since the heatwave before Black Saturday and by the end of the week could set new records, Energy Supply Association of Australia says.
On Wednesday, the maximum demand for electricity peaked at 10,151 megawatts (MW) in Victoria and South Australia peaked at 3,046MW.
The record of 10,415MW for Victoria was set on January 29, 2009 and South Australia's 3,385MW record was set on January 31, 2011.
Some Victorians were left without electricity for part of Tuesday, with electricity company SP AusNet going ahead with bushfire mitigation works in some areas despite the heat.
The Victorian government has issued a heat health alert and is urging people to stay hydrated and check on the elderly.
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