Severe bushfires yesterday burned through parts of Western Australia, with other areas of the state dealing with the aftermath of a powerful cyclone, while the country’s east coast was facing potential life-threatening flash flooding.
After months of destructive wildfires that have razed millions of hectares of land, Australia has been hit in the past few weeks by wild weather that has alternately brought heavy downpours, hail storms, gusty winds and hot and dry air.
About a dozen fires were burning in Western Australia yesterday, with severe fire danger expected in several districts, fire services and the Western Australia Bureau of Meteorology said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Daytime temperatures in some of the districts were forecast at up to 42°C.
The state’s upper parts were battling the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Damien that made a landfall on Saturday afternoon, bringing gusty winds of up to 200kph.
No immediate damages were reported and the cyclone was expected to weaken as it moved inland, but winds were seen to blow at more than 100kph.
“Although Tropical #CycloneDamien has weakened significantly from the thrashing it gave Karratha and Dampier yesterday, areas around Tom Price and Paraburdoo are receiving significant rainfall and squally conditions,” the bureau said on Twitter.
On the opposite coast of Australia, Sydney and the state of New South Wales (NSW) were in danger of potential life-threatening flash flooding as rain kept bucketing down for a third day in a row in downpours not seen since 1998.
Rainfall in some parts of the state approached half the annual average, but the falls were welcomed after the state last year saw its driest year on record, at 55 percent below average.
There was potential for heavy “rainfall and life-threatening flash-flooding,” and coast erosion, although little danger of river flooding, as water levels have been low due to a persistent drought, the NSW Bureau of Meteorology said.
In Queensland, meteorologists warned of flash and riverine flooding yesterday, following heavy falls overnight.
An emergency flood alert was issued for residents of Dalby due to a creek overflowing, about 200km west of Brisbane.
Heavy rain also caused flooding of storm water drains and streets throughout Sydney, sent trees crashing down over vehicles, driveways, and the tennis courts at Sydney Grammar, and caused landslips that undermined train tracks in the Blue Mountains.
Rain was falling on Sydney and the central coast at a rate of 15mm to 20mm per hour, said Jane Goulding, the Bureau of Meteorology manager of weather services for NSW and the Australian Capital Territory.
That heavy rainfall was expected to continue for another nine to 12 hours.
“The last time Sydney saw as much rainfall as we have had now ... is in the middle of 2016,” Golding said. “But we have surpassed those figures [for rainfall] and you have to go back as far as 1998 to see totals like we will get.”
“So it is uncommon. It is uncommon to see rainfall rates as high as we have seen, up in the hundreds of millimeters occurring over consecutive days. That’s very uncommon to New South Wales,” she said.
A king tide in Sydney also caused inundation in low-lying areas and there are risks of coastal erosion, Golding said.
That was expected to hit Collaroy and other areas that were eroded by the 2016 storm surge.
The Sydney Harbour buoy was recording waves of 5m, surging to 8m, and the seas were so rough that the buoy off Collaroy beach pulled free from its moorings.
The heaviest rain was recorded in the Northern Rivers region, where Kingscliff received 300mm in 24 hours.
That rain is moving south down the coast, Golding said.
Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains has received 200mm in the past 24 hours, and parts of the mid-north coast received 250mm.
The town of Narrabri, 521km northwest of Sydney, went from “drought to flooding in a day,” the NSW State Emergency Services said.
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