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 Around 31,000
homes lost power in Perth and to the south of the city overnight as strong,
squally winds brought down trees and powerlines in SW WA. Around 6,000
were still without power late this morning as Western Power crews from surrounding
districts were brought into country areas south of Perth to restore service.
The strongest recorded wind gusts were 121km/h at Cape Leeuwin around 8 last
night, 109 at Rottnest Island at midnight, and 100 at Ocean Reef, Bickley and
Mandurah in the early hours (see Gusts)
Heavy rain accompanied the front, giving many parts of the
Southwest 20 to 40mm in one or two hours. Bickley, an eastern suburb of Perth,
registered 41mm
between midnight and 3am, 30mm of which fell in 42 minutes around 2am. For
details of heavy falls, see Downpours.
24-hour totals to 9am were generally between 25 and 50mm southwest of a line
from Perth to Albany, and between 10 and 25mm between that and a line from
Geraldton to Esperance.
There
were extreme variations in minimum temperature in the west this morning. Minima
were more than 8C above average in SE WA ahead of the front, where
Eyre and Balgair recorded 16 or 17C, 10.4 above. However, in the state's
north and across the border in western NT, where the cold, dry airmass from
last week's cold outbreak has lingered, minima dropped as low as 2.6 at Mandora
on the NW WA coast, some 10.9C below average. Derby Airport's 7.7, at 9.3
below normal, was low enough to set a new August record for the station.
The
strong pressure gradient across the southeast of the continent produced strong
to gale force northwesterly winds east from SE WA to the NSW Snowy Mountains
and south to TAS. Cape Willoughby on Kangaroo Island SA recorded a top gust
of 100km/h and the summit of Mt Wellington TAS 115. Very warm air was ducted
SE in a band a few hundred kilometres wide ahead of the front. In SE WA,
most Goldfields and Eucla stations reported top temperatures of 27C, around
8 above normal, while several stations in SE TAS topped 20C. The top of 9C
on the summit of Mt Wellington, accompanied by wind averaging 70 to 80km/h,
gives an indication of the warmth and energy available in the lower atmosphere. |
