Queensland gets early taste of summer with temperatures to soar 8C above average SPLASHING OUT: Amanda Hamlyn (left) and Taylor Mothershaw with dog Gemma enjoy the hot weather at The Spit on the Gold Coast. HOT weather is on the way, with Brisbane to get its first blast of summer on Wednesday when the temperature will hit 32C. This will put the city 8C above its September average, although it will ease 3C by Thursday. See our weather page for extensive observations and forecasts Much of the state continues to dry out, with August rainfall totals for the southern half of Queensland in the lowest 10 per cent recorded. The southeast's hot conditions will be courtesy of a trough creating a blustery northwest wind. Weather bureau forecaster Rick Threlfall said the combination of dry and windy conditions also would produce extremely dangerous fire conditions for most of the southern half of Queensland. ``It's a pretty warm pocket of air coming through and it'll be dry and hot," he said. ``We'll still get a bit of wind Thursday but the peak of it will be Wednesday." Mr Threlfall said temperatures would ease towards the end of the week and there was a slight chance of one or two storms in the southeast next weekend. ``It's pretty dry right around the state although the Cairns (south to Tully) area had 30mm to 40mm on the weekend," he said. On Wednesday, Ipswich will have 33C, the Sunshine Coast 31C and the Gold Coast 29C. The last time Brisbane hit 32C was on March 17. It's been much wetter in the south, with the National Climate Centre finding that most of Tasmania, southern Victoria and southeastern South Australia had monthly totals in the highest 10 per cent of records. In bad news for farmers, soil moisture levels have decreased dramatically in the past month across New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory and parts of South Australia, with some the lowest on record. More than half of Queensland is drought-declared and the bureau's outlook for the September-November period is grim. AgForce chief executive Charles Burke said it was turning into a horror year for sheep and cattlemen. "I was on a property north of Mount Isa last week and they've lost a third of their feed in fires," he said. Coupled with probably the worst infestation of wild dogs in years it's not good. Mr Burke said hand-feeding stock was soul-destroying work. "Farmers need to get off the property and talk to other people," he said. The only solution is a concerted effort to pray for rain. Although it is traditionally one of our driest times of the year, there is little prospect of an early wet at this stage. Above normal rainfall for most of the Top End and a slender strip along the NT border in Queensland's southwest is forecast. Over the rest of the state, odds of above average rainfall are no better than even.