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Wind-battered SA, TAS and VIC in for further blasts

Brett Dutschke, Monday May 2, 2016 - 11:15 AEST

On the weekend wild winds battered South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, toppling trees and bringing down powerlines and there is more of that on the way.

Wind peaked at about 130 km/h in Tasmania, about 120 km/h in Victoria and 90-100km/h in Hobart and Melbourne and 90 km/h in SA and has potential to be similarly strong later today and tomorrow.

Together with the recent burst of wind and rain, trees, powerlines, buildings, walls and other structures have become more vulnerable to further damage.

Intense low pressure systems forming south of Tasmania are spawning strong cold fronts, resulting in the windiest few days seen in several months.

Smithton in Tasmania had its windiest day in almost five years, recording a 104 km/h gust on Sunday. Many other Tasmanian towns had their windiest day since last winter. It was the windiest day in about four years at Coles Point in SA (93 km/h) and windiest day since spring in some eastern Melbourne suburbs (100 km/h).

After confining bursts of strong westerly winds (strong cold fronts) to Antarctica recently, the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is now allowing fronts to penetrate further north, affecting southern Australia.

As a result, fronts are moving through every two days or so. Wind will ease later tomorrow once a high pressure system begins to take over. However, wind should strengthen again later in the week due to another two fronts impacting during Thursday and next weekend.

From next week, fronts should generally weaken and become less frequent as the SAM causes them to retreat closer to Antarctica.

- Weatherzone

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