NSW
bushfires continue
Wild
storms again damage SE Qld
Hot
in Qld, NSW; cold in WA |
Brisbane
radar at 4.10pm shows the widespread but patchy nature of the storms.
BoM |
A 1,000km line of convection that developed along the Great Divide from north of Newcastle NSW to west of Rockhampton Qld moved northeast during the afternoon and evening bringing widespread thunderstorms. In SE Qld, wild winds, heavy rain and lightning strikes caused further damage and cut power supplies to more than 50,000 customers in Brisbane, the Gold and Sunshine Coasts and Toowoomba. Wind brought down power lines in 150 locations. Trees were uprooted, including one which crashed into a house in Landsborough. A Beerwah SES spokesman said many houses in the area had lost roofs or suffered tree damage, while power was cut for up to 17 hours. At Boonah, tarpaulins were ripped from houses unroofed in the 22 December storms. Lightning damaged a house near Caboolture and two on the Gold Coast.
As the radar image at right shows, the storms were intense but well scattered and gave torrential rain as they moved NE at about 50km/h, slowing somewhat as they neared the coast. Some of the heavier short duration recordings are given below, and include 32.8mm in 19 minutes at Archerfield and 38.2mm in 20 minutes at Maroochydore. With further storms early on Monday morning, many locations recorded between 50 and 100mm for the 24 hours to 9am Monday, with top falls of 105.6 at Sunnybank in Brisbane's south and 94.0 at Archerfield to the north.
Heatwave conditions, which have covered large parts of Queensland for the past 11 days, gave high overnight minima in the state's west, north and east, including 30.6 at Boulia, before widespread maxima today in the low to mid 40s. Northwesterly winds blew out seabreezes along the NSW Central Coast giving temperatures up to 14° above normal. In southeastern WA, however, overnight minima were well below normal. Salmon Gums, 100km north of Esperance, recorded a near frost-level 4°, while Leonora, 200km N of Kalgoorlie, set a December record, with its minimum of 9.3 the lowest in 44 years of computerised observations.