Melbourne had its wettest day in a year on Sunday as wild spring weather saw storms blanket the city and cause significant damage in the western suburbs.
BOM senior meteorologist Simon Timke said Melbourne recorded 15mm of rain in 15 minutes between 4.20pm to 4.35pm.
People walk through the city with umbrellas on Sunday as rain hits Melbourne.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
“It was a pretty wet, pretty intense period,” Timke said. “That’s fairly intense and a lot of gutters and drains would struggle to cope with that sort of intensity and that’s where we get the flooding issues when the rain’s coming down that heavy and that fast.”
Overall, Melbourne had 31.6mm from 9am until just after 6pm on Sunday.
“Which makes it Melbourne’s wettest day since October 19 last year when 32mm was recorded at Melbourne’s Olympic Park site,” Timke said.
He added that the wild weather was a part of spring time in Melbourne.
“Spring is the time for Melbourne and Victoria to get this sort of weather, as we start to see some more dynamic cold fronts moving across,” Timke said.
“Things start to warm up a bit. There’s more energy in the atmosphere, and it’s the favoured time of year for this sort of weather.
“The storms reached the far western suburbs between 3.30pm and 4pm and then moved steadily across the Melbourne area during the next hour or two.”
Werribee and Hoppers Crossing were among the suburbs worst hit. Around 13,000 customers were left without power in the Werribee, Truganina and the surrounding suburbs after lightning strikes hit power lines during the storms while the State Emergency Service’s Wyndham Unit received 133 calls up to 5.40pm.
Powercor said it was responding to a significant number of jobs with three large faults in the Werribee area along with two large faults in the Truganina area.
The company hopes its customers in the city’s west will have their power restored sometime on Sunday evening but will keep customers updated via text messages and their website outage map.
“We will be working into the evening to identify those faults and restore power as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson said.
Overnight and early morning storms on Sunday also saw some Powercor customers in Victoria’s south-west lose power with faults reported in parts of Ballarat, Colac and Horsham which were worked on throughout the day and into the evening.
The SES’s busiest suburbs on Sunday were Werribee (83 calls) and Hoppers Crossing (48 calls) while, statewide, they received 395 calls from midnight to 5.40pm with 215 for building damage and 80 for fallen trees.
Georgie Prespakis of the Cats and Sarah Poustie of the Bulldogs compete for the ball in an AFLW match in Ballarat on Sunday.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
The BOM reported that Melbourne Olympic Park (37.4mm), Avalon Airport (36.4mm) and Laverton RAAF (29mm) recorded the most rain from midnight to 6pm. Mt Buller topped the state with 48mm.
Melbourne is forecast to have a cool, slightly wet day on Monday with a shower or two and a high of 14 degrees and a low of 10 while Tuesday is forecast to see temperatures drop to a low of six before a sunny day and a top of 18.
Early storms in Ballarat made for wet, slippery conditions in the AFLW match between Western Bulldogs and Geelong at Mars Stadium on Sunday.
“The rain held off until the end, but it was like running in a swimming pool. It wasn’t the best spectacle but sometimes you just have to win dirty,” Geelong’s Amy McDonald told Seven after the game.
Lightning caused play to be delayed between Carlton and GWS Giants at Ikon Park in Carlton in the afternoon before the game was finished safely.
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