Cyclone Narelle live updates: Severe storm crosses WA coast as regional towns face devastating damage

BoM has updated cyclone Narelle’s tracking map, showing the destructive disasters likely path for Friday headed into Saturday.

The eye of the storm is currently passing through Carnarvon and will make its way through the Gascoyne region as it tracks towards Denham.

Water Corporation has advised residents bunkered down in Exmouth and Onslow to limit their non-essential water use.

It comes as emergency services work diligently to repair infrastructure damaged by cyclone Narelle.

Exmouth will experience low water pressure and see potential interruptions overnight due to a power outage affecting the town’s two borefields.

While Onslow has ongoing repairs to water mains that were damaged, impacting supply to a large water storage tank.

Helpful ways residents can limit water use and support crews include:

• Turning off garden reticulation;
• Avoid hosing down pavement and driveways;
• Keeping showers to four minutes and skip baths;
• Avoid using water-heavy appliances such as washing machines;
• Using a plug in the sink to capture water for re-use.

A fallen tree has forced multiple lanes to be closed on a busy Perth highway on Friday afternoon.

The tree came down on Great Eastern Highway eastbound at Bilgoman Road in Hovea, causing heavy congestion in the area.

Read the full story.

The severe tropical cyclone Narelle has flexed her muscles, ripping tall trees out of the ground and flooding streets in Karratha.

Footage shared to Facebook show devastating scenes, with roads blocked off by fallen trees while the damage is expected to only get worse.

The scenes further stress importance to listen to Emergency WA’s calls to shelter indoors.

BoM has announced that tropical cyclone Narelle has been downgraded to category 2.

Onslow to Exmouth have been added to the cancelled zone, bringing relief to the area after copping the brunt of Narelle’s thrashing.

Despite being in the cancelled zone, residents in Onslow are urged to shelter indoors.

Cyclone Narelle’s punishment on WA’s regional towns continues to apply pressure on locals.

With one TikTokker updating followers on the damage their bathroom has sustained from the storm, blowing the roof of their house and creating a less-than-ideal skyline.

Huge rainfall in the Perth metropolitan area has forced Saturday’s Ascot race programme off, meaning dramatic consequences for WA’s best three-year-olds.

The main WA racing fixture for the week was sent back to next Wednesday late on Friday afternoon after positive initial track readings that morning had given a prognosis for the meeting to go ahead.

But persistently sour weather dampened expectations and Racing WA made the difficult final conclusion at 4pm to call it off.

Read the full story.

State Emergency Services have received calls from across WA over the past 24 hours.

They’ve fielded 117 calls for assistance in the Perth metro area today alone, all for water ingress as the rain keeps coming.

In the Pilbara, 42 calls have come in since yesterday, with 23 of those from Exmouth alone.

A few of those calls were for partial roof damage, with the remainder for other structural damage, downed trees and water ingress.

And in the Mid West, there have been 16 calls since yesterday with more likely to come.

Most of those calls were sandbag requests, as well as some for roof damage and water ingress.

No injuries have been reported, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services said.

Narelle will likely bring “significant rain and wind” to Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the site in the Murchison where a global consortium is building the SKA-Low radio telescope.

“The on-site teams working on the SKA-Low telescope have spent this week preparing for potential high winds and flooding, safely securing items, machinery, and infrastructure,” a SKA Observatory and CSIRO spokesman said.

“CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope has paused operations for 24 hours so that antennas can remain stowed upright during the event, which helps protect them from wind.

“Above all, the safety of everyone who works from the observatory site remains paramount.”

Once built, the SKA-Low radio telescope will give us an unprecedented view of the universe.

Cyclone Narelle has picked up the pace and is moving down the coast towards Carnarvon.

The latest update from the Bureau of Meteorology shows the category 3 cyclone is moving south-southeast at 33kms/hr, gathering pace up from the 23kms/hr pace from just two hours earlier.

Narelle continues to close in towards Carnarvon as the town has been smashed by the effects of the severe storm.