SA hit by 65,000 lightning strikes in overnight state-shaking storm
The skies above Adelaide have cleared after thunderstorms and showers lashed the state overnight. Will the lull last? Here’s what the experts predict.
SA News
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A wild storm overnight has seen thunder and lightning across much of South Australia and left thousands of households without power.
The stormy weather saw more than 10,000 homes and businesses left without power at 6am Wednesday.
Almost 3000 of those properties were in Murraylands towns including Mannum.
More than 1000 properties in Adelaide’s northern suburbs were left without power.
SA Power Networks will be responding to outages throughout the day.
Crews have “already started restoring power to some areas”, SA Power Networks head of corporate affairs Paul Roberts said.
“We’ll make some decisions in the next hours if we need to bring in extra crews to assist local crews.”
Power has since been restored to properties in Mannum.
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Mr Roberts said he expects “additional reports” of outages throughout the morning.
There is no exact time frame for when homes in the state will have their power restored but Mr Roberts advised residents that they would receive contact from SA Power Networks with updates on when outages will be fixed.
Between 3.30am and 4.30am the State Emergency Services “averaged a call every three minutes,” chief of staff Leanne Schmidt said.
“The western and eastern suburbs were impacted the most.”
Many of the incidents involved downed trees, including one in Redwood Park where a branch fell on multiple cars.
Other incidents involved water leaking into homes.
“We wouldn’t be surprised if we see a surge (of calls) in the next hours,” Ms Schmidt said.
Loud thunderclaps could be heard in the early hours of the morning in many parts of the state.
In the 24 hours to 5am on Wednesday morning there were more than 65,000 lightning strikes across the state, Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Mark Anolak said.
He also said there were “two bands of thundery rain” overnight.
Mr Anolak reported that the first band came between 9pm and 10pm on Tuesday and the second between 3am and 4am on Wednesday.
The storm dumped 20mm of rain on the state in the half-hour between 3am and 3.30am on Wednesday.
Mr Anolak said “this prompted a severe thunderstorm warning”, which has since been cancelled.
Across the metropolitan area there was between five and 25mm of rain.
Adelaide Airport was hit with a 25mm downpour.
But Mr Anolak said the band has moved past Adelaide for now.
“We should be in for a clear spot before showers and thunderstorms continue.
While “most of the activity has moved east, ” there is a chance of the stormy weather returning in the afternoon.
Thursday is expected to be a cloudy day with a very high chance of showers. There is a medium to slight chance of showers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with that probabiliy creeping back towards 80 per cent early next week.
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