Wild weather in Melbourne

Melbourne weather: Wild storms lash city

Wild storms swept across Melbourne in the early hours of Sunday morning, with wind gusts of up to 107km/h in some areas and impressive lightning displays across the city. 

the Age,

1 May, 2016

Narre Warren, Lilydale and Emerald were the worst hit, according to a spokesman for the State Emergency Service, which received more than 600 calls for assistance due to storm damage.

"It's mainly focused around the east and south-east parts of Melbourne. Narre Warren has been hit really hard," he said.

A fallen tree in Malvern. Photo: Malvern SES/Facebook

"Fortunately, the damage has all been quite minor: trees down, minor building damage, damage to roofs. We're expecting a fairly busy morning."

Residents in the hills reported sheet lightning, wild gusts shaking roofs and pounding rain for an hour from 3am.

Storm damage in Malvern. Photo: Malvern SES/Facebook

One resident, Liz Hogan, said it was raining so hard she thought her windows would break.

Then, her garage door came loose and fell off its rails, hitting the front of her car.

"It was really scary, she said. "I heard so much banging that when it quietened down I went out the back to look. I stood in ankle-deep water in the backyard.

Lighting across Melbourne, Sunday May 1 Photo: @civornergu John Ogrenovic

"I actually wondered if the roof had come off there was so much noise. I've never experienced it before. There wouldn't be many houses without damage."

In Ashwood, residents described strong winds like a "mini tornado," pulling down trees, fences and power lines as it tore off roof tiles.

"The whole street was covered in branches," one resident, Lisa, told the ABC. "The power pole was down on one of the cars here and the SES arrived pretty much straight after that."

Click for more photos

In Glen Waverley, a large gum tree came crashing down, damaging two houses.

However, early reports suggest that damage has not been severe, as the call outs were chiefly for fallen trees and minor damage, and no rescue operations were required.

 

Johnnie Yu‏@civonergu

@VicStormChasers picture taken of that storm which swept thru melbourne. From wollert

 

• LIKES2
• 

6:01 AM - 1 May 2016

For all the thunder and lightning, the storm did not bring a significant amount of rain.

The heaviest rainfalls in metropolitan Melbourne were measured at Altona and Keysborough, which both received 18mm since 9am Saturday morning. Most stations recorded around 10mm of rain.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Chris Godfred said the threat of severe thunderstorms had passed, with showers expected to clear by Sunday afternoon.

"The actual storm cells did move through fairly rapidly, but we did get some decent totals around metro Melbourne," he said.

"As we start to move into the afternoon it will have basically cleared Melbourne completely. There will just be some isolated coastal showers."

The storms also caused widespread power outages across the state.

Powercor reported more than 4000 homes without power, mainly in the Macedon Ranges, on Sunday morning while AusNet Services reported around 25,000 homes had lost power.

An AusNet Services spokesman apologised to customers for the inconvenience as crews deal with the challenging conditions, including strong winds.

"We will be working all day today to try and restore the power supply to all customers," he said.

Power has so far been restored to 4000 homes, he said, while remaining customers received an SMS message to tell them about the outages.

 11:15AM: LOW DEVELOPING OVER TASMANIA.

Via Facebook

Here it is! The low we have mentioned a number of times over the past few days which was set to develop over Tasmania. It is currently deepening but will moves south eastwards today.

Further rain and very strong winds will hit Tasmania today especially at the back end of the low (western and northern side) with squally w to sw winds.

Showers will also impact Victoria but mainly southern and mountain regions after a wild night with storms, strong winds and heavy rain in parts causing some damage.

The trough is running up eastern NSW and will cause rain, showers and few storms in this region today, Good rain and storms currently falling in the North west slopes and plains with falls up to 20mm from 9am alone! Unsetlled weather will move into southern Qld this afternoon.