Trees have been ripped from the ground and thousands of homes left without power as wild weather sweeps across Perth this morning.
But the worst is yet to come, according to the Bureau of Meteorology which has upgraded its severe weather warning to include a forecast of damaging winds of up to 125km/h.
A tree has come down over the Mitchell Freeway, sparking a warning from Main Roads WA for motorists to use extreme caution.Emergency services are on site to clear the tree which is affecting the left lane northbound at Vincent Street.There are multiple reports of trees down across roads, including in North Fremantle over Queen Victoria Street, Hay Street in Floreat and Karrinyup Road near the newly revamped Karrinyup Shopping Centre.
A number of crashes are also contributing to the peak hour traffic headache.
Thousands of properties have been left without power across Perth.
Among them are 1325 affected in the Parkwood, Ferndale, Riverton area, 1082 in Mount Claremont, Floreat, 199 in Innaloo, 128 in Scarborough, 118 in Wanneroo and 116 in Balcatta, Carine.
The terrible weather has also prevented the third day of WA v Tasmania Sheffield Shield match going ahead at the WACA Ground today.
Melville copped the brunt of damaging winds at 6.23am, recording gusts of up to 95km/h, followed by Swanbourne, 83km/h, Gooseberry Hill 74 km/h.
Rottnest also recorded 95km/h.
Swanbourne had received 9.8mm of rain as of 7am, Mandurah 9.4mm and Bickley 9mm. The Bureau has predicted up to 35mm of rain across the day.
Bureau spokesperson Catherine Schelfout said a rain band was crossing over Perth this morning bringing the heaviest rain of the day before a low pressure system packing damaging winds moved across.
“That’s going to move south of the State tonight, close to midnight so that’s when we are expecting the strongest winds to come through,” she told The West Live.
“We are upgrading the warning for tonight because the computer modelling this morning looks a little bit worse than it did when we previously issued, so the new warning will say gusts up to 125km/h possible, it’s more likely to be in exposed coastal areas but certainly still gusts up to 100km/h possible inland a little bit.”
Showery conditions are expected to continue for the next couple of days, although there is some good weather on the horizon with the Bureau forecasting a glorious 29C and sunny for Sunday.
PERTH FORECAST
Tuesday: 21C – rain, possible storm, 15-30mm
Wednesday: 13-20C, showers, winds easing, 4-8mm
Thursday: 13-21C, shower or two, 0-1mm
Friday: 11-23C, partly cloudy
Saturday: 11-27C, mostly sunny
Sunday: 14-29C, mostly sunny
Source: https://thewest.com.au/news/severe-weather/perth-severe-weather-warning-trees-down-across-roads-power-blackouts-as-wild-winds-cause-chaos-ng-b882044271z
