More fierce storms hit South East after wild supercells strike
Severe thunderstorms have hit parts of southern Queensland, with residents warned of damaging winds, large hailstones and heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding.
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Severe thunderstorms have been detected in parts of southern Queensland, with residents warned of damaging winds, large hailstones and heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a warning at 7:01pm for people in parts of Southern Downs, South Burnett, Toowoomba and Western Downs council areas.
“The Bureau of Meteorology warns that, at 6:55 pm, severe thunderstorms likely to produce damaging winds, large hailstones and heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding were detected near the area west of Warwick.”
“These thunderstorms are moving towards the northwest. They are forecast to affect Clifton by 7:25 pm.”
Earlier in the day at 3:13pm, wind gusts of 109 km/h were recorded at Kingaroy Airport. This comes as record high wind speeds were recorded two days earlier in southeast Queensland.
The Courier-Mail had earlier reported the South East was facing a third round of storms as powerful as those that killed a man and left a 10-year-old girl fighting for life after seperate lightning strikes.
Senior meteorologist at The Bureau, Dean Narramore, had this morning said another hot and humid day on Sunday would be followed by another set of severe storms.
“These will produce large hail, damaging winds and heavy rain, just not as widespread as we’ve seen,” he said.
“But if you’re under one of these storms it is likely to cause some issues.”
He said the storm risk extended from the eastern Darling Downs, through much of the South East Coast and northward into the Wide Bay and Burnett.
Mr Narramore said the Bureau was expecting severe heatwave conditions across the region to begin to ease over the next few days but no significant cool change is expected until mid-week.
“It’s the last day of the low to severe heat wave conditions on Sunday, with temperatures in the mid to high 30s. It’ll be 34C in Brisbane and 38C in the western suburbs,” he said.
“It will ‘cool down’, you could say, to the low 30s as we get into early and mid next week, the bigger cool down will be later in the week when it might drop below 30C.”
It comes as a 10-year-old girl remains in a crtical condition after being struck by lightning on the Sunshine Coast.
The child was rushed to Sunshine Coast University Hospital after being struck in Beerwah about 2.30pm Saturday. She was later transported to the Queensland Children’s Hospital where she remained in a critical condition Sunday morning.
A man in his 60s was also struck by lightning while standing in his front yard on the Gold Coast just after 4pm Saturday.
On Friday a 30-year-old man was electrocuted when he attempted to move fallen tree branches at Murarrie. He has since been identified as Bala Naga Manendra Kopparthi.
A QFES spokeswoman on Sunday said there were 14 SES callouts overnight related to the deadly storms that have battered the South East from Friday.
She said 10 were to the north coast about Gympie and the Sunshine Coast, three in Brisbane and one for the south east about the Gold Coast.
South East Queensland’s energy supplier said 60 crews from across the region were on the ground on Sunday tackling the remaining impacts from Friday and Saturday’s storms.
“We’re assessing and responding, but it’s going to be a long, hot day to get on top of the damage, especially in hard-to-reach areas,” they wrote on Facebook.
There were 3700 customers without power across the South East Sunday morning including over 1200 across the Sunshine Coast Council area, 1049 in Moreton Bay, and 536 at Noosa.
“Most of the main lines smashed on Friday have been repaired, and the focus is now on restoring power to pockets of customers; hopefully by this evening as long as there are no further storms,” Energex added.
However, one exception was around Moreton Bay’s Wamuran, where Energex must rebuild chunks of the network.
“Even with a clear run, some customers may be without power until tomorrow (Monday),” they said.
“Yesterday’s sky show has caused significant new network damage from the Noosa hinterland to north of Brisbane, bringing down dozens of powerlines.”
Woolworths at Beerwah was impacted by the power outage, resulting in cold items being pulled from the shelf. Other stores were also forced to close, including Beerwah Simpson Street Servo which had.
Sky News meteorologist Alison Osborne said the thunderstorm was a “microburst”, which was “the highest-end storm we can get”.
Energex spokesman Danny Donald said about 35,000 customers were without power at its peak – the most he’d seen from a single storm in his 20-year career.
It left shattered residents picking up the pieces after roofs were ripped off houses, sheds were blown away and trees were destroyed.
On Saturday afternoon, the Bureau of Meteorology warned severe storms would smash the South East for a second time, with winds of up to 125km/h, large hail, heavy rains and potential flash flooding expected.
By 4.45pm, about 7000 homes north of Brisbane and 2190 in the metropolitan area were without power. Hail 4cm in size lashed Beaudesert at 2.45pm and the storms led to the cancellation of the Festive on the Green event at Sunshine Coast Stadium.
Friday’s storm, which was comparable to a category three cyclone and brought wind gusts of up to 169km/h, battered the city’s south, with numerous homes and business affected in the suburbs of Rocklea, Moorooka and Archerfield.
Senior meteorologist Shane Kennedy said damaging winds in Archerfield were the strongest recorded since the 1940s.
“At 169km/h in Archerfield, it was a record from 143km/h back in 1946,” he said.
Mr Kennedy said Caboolture and Upper Caboolture had between 100mm-130mm of rain.
“That was labelled as intense rainfall but the rate it was falling at was most severe,” he said.
Mr Kennedy said Upper Caboolture received 97mm in just half an hour.
“That is potentially life-threatening severe flash flooding,” he said.
“There’s about a 2 per cent chance for that area to get 63mm an hour and it went way over.”
Jerin Thomas, 26, who had the roof blown off his Rocklea home, returned on Saturday to inspect the damage.
“We will have to move. Our home will probably get demolished,” he said.
“It’ll take months to fix.”
Mr Thomas said all it took was a split second for the ferocious storm to tear the roof off.
“We were still inside when the storm hit, but there was hail and it felt like someone was throwing stones at the window,” he said.
“And then suddenly the roof just flew away … it was instant.”
Mr Thomas said he had lived in the house with four friends for about 18 months.
“We’re just checking what belongings of ours are still OK, but then we’ll just dump most of them,” he said.
Wendy Ellis said she was “amazed” her car wasn’t blown away such was the force of the storm.
Her shed, however, was destroyed and there was extensive water damage inside her home.
“It was so forceful,” she said.
“All my bedrooms are soaked. I’m just taking it one thing at a time.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”
Nearby resident Hans Von Moors described the strength of the winds as “incredible”.
“It was like a cyclone – the rain was so thick that you couldn’t see five metres in front of you,” he said.
The owner of Race and Road motorcycle shop in Archerfield, Andrew Smart, said about $10,000 worth of stock was damaged in the storm.
“It was pretty hairy, and pretty dangerous actually,” he said.
“There was cars parked out the front, bikes out the front and 2m-3m chunks of wood coming down from above on to cars,” he said.
“It was pretty terrifying. You wouldn’t want to be out there in it. If something fell on you, it would’ve taken you out.”
Brisbane City Council finance and city governance chairwoman Fiona Cunningham said there were eight council crews clearing Brisbane’s worst storm-affected areas on Saturday.
“At this stage, we don’t believe a special green waste kerbside collection is required but we will continue to monitor the situation, “she said. “We’ve opened Willawong Resource Recovery Centre for free green waste today and tomorrow to assist residents with the clean-up efforts.”
Ms Cunningham said the council encouraged people to contact its call centre on 3403 8888 if they required assistance.
A Queensland Fire and Emergency Services spokeswoman said it had received 250 calls for help statewide with 180 of those from Brisbane.
“These are the latest figures we had but we know another 60 of those were for the South East region,” she said. “We’re just working through it all.”
An RACQ spokesman said that at 1pm on Saturday, they had received 115 home insurance claims and 23 motor insurance claims from the storms in Brisbane.
“The majority of claims received are related to leaking roofs, wind damage to fences and tree debris.”
Premier Steven Miles said he wanted to send his thanks to all of the SES and first responders who were “out helping during the storm last night”.
“They make a massive difference every time they pull on those uniforms and we are grateful to them,” he said.
Ms Scholes said she was scared about what might have happened down the road.
“I’m just mortified, sorry I have no words,” she added.
“If that is what has happened and especially if the little one is not okay, my heart stops.”
The storms have led to the cancellation of the Festive on the Green event at Sunshine Coast Stadium.
“Unfortunately, due to the weather and a desire to maintain safety, the Festive on the Green event scheduled for today has been cancelled,” a statement from Sunshine Coast Council read.
“We apologise for any inconvenience.”
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