| A line of unusually strong
thunderstorms for winter moved across southeastern states today.
Brief bursts of heavy rain and small hail were widespread, but the main
damage was caused by strong winds in downbursts with the storms, and two
reported tornadoes.
In Victoria, a likely F1 strength
tornado cut a swathe 9km long through Sunbury and southeast toward
Essendon, damaging 15 homes, tearing the roof and a wall off the
Boardman Stadium Sports Complex in Sunbury, uprooting trees, downing power
lines, damaging a power substation, and blacking out around 3000 premises
and Essendon Airport. Heavy rain followed the tornado, which struck just
before 6pm, adding to the damage bill in unroofed homes and causing flash
flooding. 14mm was recorded in the Melbourne City gauge, most falling
in about 20 minutes. Earlier, the storms blacked out 4000 premises at
Woodend and Lancefield while banked up hail made roads treacherous
near Heathcote, Elmore and Goornong as the storm cells moved
southeast from the Ballarat/Daylesford area. In Melbourne, the early evening
storm provided an impressive electrical display, with a block of flats
in South Yarra damaged by lightning.
Earlier in the day, the cold front that
spawned Victoria's storms stomped ashore in South Australia. A
waterspout came ashore just before 8am at Robe, a fishing town
250km SSE of Adelaide, flipping a dry-docked crayfishing boat on its side
causing about $100,000 worth of damage. Small buildings were damaged,
and a 1.5 tonne gas cylinder set leaking by flying debris forced the evacuation
of 12 people from Robe Hotel and nearby houses. The Bureau of Meteorology
estimated the tornado at F1 strength, with winds around 100km/h. 23mm
of rain fell at Robe in the storm, while heavy rain from storms in Adelaide
produced a spate of car accidents.
The storms combined with more general falls
in a strong, moist northwesterly airstream to produce heavy rain in NE
Victoria and around the NSW Snowy Mountains in the 48 hours
to 9am Wednesday. The Chalet at Mt Buffalo recorded 95.4mm over the 2
days, leading to minor flooding in the King River late on Wednesday. More
details are given in the rainfall boxes below and for 9 August 2000.
|
as
new and corrected information becomes available, with updates underlined