The east coast of Australia, including Sydney, was yesterday battered by a freak storm, with trees uprooted and thousands left without power.
The wild storm struck New South Wales (NSW) after wreaking havoc in Queensland state on Saturday, with an intense low-pressure system bringing heavy rains, gales and rough seas. Hundreds of people were evacuated from homes across NSW and motorists trapped on roads had to be rescued as floodwaters rose, the State Emergency Service said.
Gusts in excess of 90kph were recorded, with forecasts of “locally destructive” winds of up to 125kph in some parts of the state, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said.
Photo: EPA
Sydney Airport closed two of its three runaways amid high winds, with domestic and international flights affected.
“NSW forecasters can’t recall having a flood watch for the entire east coast of NSW in the last 30 years,” senior meteorologist Adam Morgan, of the bureau’s extreme weather section, told reporters.
An east coast low usually affects only a local region intensely, but the current weather system was “very unusual” as it has tracked along the coastline, affecting four states, particularly NSW, which has a 2,000km-long shoreline, Morgan added.
“It’s really affected a very large proportion of Australia’s population given that a large percentage of Australians live along the eastern seaboard,” he said, describing it as an “extreme event.”
In a 24-hour period to yesterday morning, the bureau said there were widespread rainfalls of between 10cm to 20cm, with the highest-recorded level recorded at Wooli River at 46.9cm.
Victoria state and the southern island state of Tasmania also experienced a deluge of rain.
At the same time, the east coast low is coinciding with a king tide, the highest tide of the year, leading to serious erosion on Sydney’s northern beaches.
“The fact that we are getting a storm event at the exact same time as those king tides creates this perfect scenario for coastal erosion,” Mitchell Harley, of the University of New South Wales, told reporters, adding that it was the worst erosion in three decades.
While storm conditions usually generate waves of up to 8m, individual waves of up to 13m have been recorded this weekend, Harley said.
More rain was forecast for NSW later yesterday as the weather system moves south, with fears of localized flooding, with conditions due to ease today.
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