Damaging gusts of wind, storms and hail have pummelled Australia’s south-east overnight, upending roofs and fences.
An active cold front crossed South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales on Thursday, bringing extensive damaging winds.
At first the northerly winds were warm and dry, senior meteorologist Angus Hines, from Bureau of Meteorology, said. Wind gusts were strongest in exposed alpine areas of Victoria and NSW, reaching more than 130km/h.
VICSES crews have responded to 348 requests for assistance in the last 12 hours (9:00pm Thursday - 9:00am Friday). This includes for trees down (203) and building damage (137).
— VICSES News (@vicsesnews) September 7, 2023
Our busiest units were Warrnambool (129), Portland (51), and Port Fairy (31). pic.twitter.com/aTfC5lTfel
In Sydney, the strongest winds were felt in the far west, with gusts at 91km/h towards Penrith. Reports of damage to property came overnight as winds picked up with storms, Hines said.
On Friday a second strong wind coming from the south-west brought cooler gusts to the south of the country.
“Many places are looking at six, eight, even 10C colder today than yesterday,” Hines said.
The weather bureau urged people in western Sydney, southern and central ranges and the Hunter region to tidy up loose items around their yards.
“Things like [roof] panels, trampolines, fences, can all bear the brunt of incoming wind,” Hines said.
Strong winds were disrupting flights out of Sydney airport on Friday afternoon as it is reduced to single runway operations.
Airservices Australia, the government provider of air traffic control services, enacted single runway operations on the east-west runway “due to strong westerly crosswinds”.
When crosswinds become too strong, air traffic control authorities can swap from the parallel runways to the cross runway. Friday’s wind was blowing down this runway rather than across it.
Airservices Australia said the decision was “purely weather and safety-related to safeguard the travelling public”.
After relatively calm weeks of weather, Hines said extra foliage on trees were at risk of falling down as winds pick up. He also said driving motorbikes, or high-sided vehicles like buses and trucks, could be dangerous in these conditions.
The low pressure system that's bringing gales to southern VIC. pic.twitter.com/amn6687oif
— Andrew Miskelly (@andrewmiskelly) September 7, 2023
Rain moving across Sydney may interrupt the NSW Rural fire service’s hazard reduction burns, ahead of what is forecast to be the most significant bushfire season since black summer.
The bureau has also warned of damaging surf conditions in Victoria. Waves bigger than seven metres will hit the surf zone along the coast west of Cape Otway, while swells up to six metres were expected from Point Nepean to Wilsons Promontory.
Friday night will bring a reprieve to much of south-east Australia, with winds expecting to ease.
“It will stay windy for many this afternoon, and we will start to see those winds more broadly fall away tonight and overnight.”
Hines said calmer night-time conditions could mean chilly early mornings for the weekend, but for most of the country “you can certainly line up for some spells of sunshine this weekend”.
