Perth’s WA Day long weekend stayed wet and wild on Sunday after the city copped a drenching of rain and was battered by damaging winds.
More than 20mm of rain fell on Sunday up to 5pm as intense showers pelted the west coast from the Midwest to Great Southern regions.
Wind gusts of 113kph on Rottnest Island in the mid afternoon, while Cape Leeuwin recorded a gust of 122kph.
Winds were expected to worsen as the evening went on, before easing off after midnight.
The destruction started on Saturday night as more than 120 calls were made to the State Emergency Service from between 5pm on Saturday to 9am on Sunday.
The damage continued as the day went on with winds getting worse as the afternoon rolled on.
A further 160 calls to the SES were made before 4pm on Sunday, mostly from the metropolitan area but extending to the South West, Great Southern and Midwest-Gascoyne regions.
While it appeared areas in Perth’s south were the first to be hit especially hard, coastal areas including Mandurah and Bunbury were worst hit.
A number of trees and power lines fell across the State, leaving nearly 30,000 households without power across the Perth and the wider South West of WA.
Homes without power face a lengthy wait to reconnected with Western Power predicting homes would need to wait until Monday evening for their lights to return.
Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Joey Rawson said the strength of the storm was not seen every year.
“The unusual aspect of this system is that the low pressure system that is producing these exceptionally windy conditions is more intense than usual,” he said.
“It’s conditions that we don’t see that often, we won’t see an event like this for a number of years.”
The storm also caught out some whose backyard fixtures weren’t properly secured.
Mandurah resident Matt Atley woke to find a neighbour’s shed bent and lying in his pool after the wild weather last night.
He took to social media to document the incident.
“Anyone in Mandurah is missing a shed from last night’s storm?” the post read.
“We found it.”
Unusually high tides were seen across the city on Sunday morning.
The water level of Swan River was especially high, most noticeably around Barrack Street which had a height of 1.9 metres, more than half a metre higher than usual.
The walkway to the iconic Blue Boat Shed on Swan River was entirely submerged.
Mr Rawson said the water levels were expected to reduce by Monday.
“There’s certainly been some storm surge along the West Coast, and that coincided with the high tide that occurred this morning,” he said.
“That also brought the water in on the Mitchell Freeway, as well as the Riverside Drive, however, those storm surge conditions along the west coast are going to ease for tomorrow’s high tide so the worst is done in regards to water inundation for tomorrow.
“However, along the south coast there’s the potential for water inundation in places like Albany as the system tracks further to the east south of WA.”
Beaches also copped the brunt of the storm with some in Rockingham showing a considerable amount of erosion.
It was a similar story all along the coast, with towns from Lancelin to Busselton seeing high tides.
The wet weather also caused disruptions to public transport, with a storm-related technical issue leading to the cancellation of trains on the Fremantle line and delays on the Midland line.
Transport Minister Rita Saffioti took to social media to warn commuters of the disruption.
“The Public Transport Authority are working as quickly as possible to resolve the issues and will continue to monitor the situation across the network as the storms continue to cross the state,” she said.
“Thank you to all of our frontline workers who are out in the storm helping clean up and managing the impacts.”
The weather was tipped to ease for the final day of the long weekend, but not enough to avoid cancelling several WA Day festivals planned for the public holiday.
“Strong winds are making it impossible to safely bump in the event, and conditions are not expected to improve sufficiently for a public event of this scale to proceed safely,” a statement on behalf of organisers Celebrate WA read.
“The safety of patrons, performers, artists, vendors, staff, volunteers and event partners is always the overriding priority.”
The weather system wreaking havoc on the west coast is expected to continue its path east towards the eastern States, giving some relief to Perth.
But Mr Rawson warned WA’s south east region would still be feeling the storm.
“We’ve got this intense tropical low that’s just southwest of WA, and that is going to move eastwards,” he said.
“With that intense tropical low, it’s bringing these damaging and destructive wind gusts, especially to the west coast towns south of Lancelin and the south coast towns as that system continues to move towards the east,
“The west coast conditions will ease through Monday morning, but southern districts will continue to get some damaging and possibly destructive wind gusts as we progress through Monday.”
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