Fierce Storms lash Western Australia
Joel Pippard,
Sunday November 19, 2017 - 09:31 AEDT
Wind gusts in excess of 110km/h were recorded yesterday afternoon as storms rolled over WA's southeast.
Forrest near the South Australian border recorded a wind gust of 114km/h at 5:11pm on Saturday afternoon. It was accompanied by another six wind gusts greater than 100km/h that hit the town during the storm, which lasted about 20 minutes.
Amazingly, Forrest only picked up 3mm of rain in the gauge during these storms, with lingering showers bumping it up to 6mm by midnight. Despite this, there were over 1500 lightning strikes within 20km of the Town. Temperatures fell to 19C during the storm, a stark contrast to the days maximum of 40.3 degrees.
Kalgoorlie also recorded a 107km/h wind gust that dropped the temperature by 4 degrees in just a minute and 8 degrees in 6 minutes just before 2pm. Luckily, they also picked up 7.4mm in 5 minutes with 12mm of rain all up.
The highest rainfall in the region fell at Salmon Gums, who saw 30mm fall in total after two separate storms passed over the town yesterday.
The low pressure system and associated troughs generated storms that brought over 600,000 lighting strikes across the state.
Storms are expected to continue on Sunday in the Eucla region and may also become severe. Conditions will ease on Monday as the system moves east and dissipates.
- Weatherzone
© Weatherzone
2017