More than 1.38 million lightning strikes have hit Western Australia in the span of 48 hours to Monday morning.
The electric storm activity has brought rainfall over inland WA that far exceed historical averages. Kalgoorlie recorded 66mm from Friday to Monday – five times more than the September average.
Weatherzone forecasts another million lightning strikes will be recorded across the state this week, with up to 60mm of rain in some areas.
Much of the weekend’s lightning was in the centre of the vast state. Emergency WA has no bushfire alerts for anywhere outside the Kimberley region.
The DTN Total Lightning Network recorded 1,383,798 lightning “pulses” within an 800km radius of Leonora in the 48 hours to 8am local time on Monday. Leonora is in the Goldfields-Esperance region, 620km northeast of Perth.
The lightning storms did extend further though, with one photographer posting a towering daytime strike in outer Darwin on Monday.
The Bureau of Meteorology has no warnings in place related to the inland conditions, but the weather systems feeding the storms are causing massive ocean wind and rough sea warnings.
The lightning over WA was caused by tropical moisture feeding into a slow-moving low pressure system, Weatherzone said.
Of the 1.38 million strikes in 48 hours to 8am on Monday, 900,000 strikes came in the second 24 hours.
Rain gauges at Kalgoorlie-Boulder Airport hit 66mm from Friday morning to Monday morning. The mining town gets an average of 13.3mm in September, according to official records back to 1939.
The El Nino effect created more high pressure systems to the south of Australia and conditions over the Indian Ocean that combined trapped storms over WA, a Weatherzone spokesperson said.
Various parts of WA are forecast to get 30-60mm of rain this week, while another million lightning strikes are forecast to hit the state to Friday.
Kalgoorlie could receive 2-9mm of rain on Monday, and storms and showers are forecast to hang around Leonora for the rest of today before clearing for the rest of the week.
Further north at Newman, there’s the chance of thunderstorms on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Originally published as WA cops 1.3 million weekend lightning strikes
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