Almost 50,000 Victorian homes and businesses were without power and some would remain in the dark overnight as wild thunderstorms swept across the state, causing flight delays at Melbourne airport.
A severe thunderstorm warning was issued on Tuesday afternoon for Bendigo, Maryborough, Castlemaine, Kyneton, Ballarat, Bellarine Peninsula and greater Melbourne.
The Bureau of Meteorology cancelled the warning for greater Melbourne on Tuesday evening, saying the “immediate threat” had passed but “the situation will continue to be monitored and further warnings will be issued if necessary”.
The BoM warning remained in place for people in the northern country and parts of the central, Mallee, north central, north east and west and south Gippsland districts.
There were reports of large hail around Bendigo, as well as rainfall totals of 20mm in 30 minutes at Eversley, 30mm in 30 minutes at Mount Buninyong and 29mm in 60 minutes at Yandoit.
A wind gust of 104km/h was also recorded in Wangaratta, near the New South Wales border.
Thunderstorm cells were moving south-east and may lead to flash flooding over the next several hours on Tuesday evening.
“Park your car undercover and away from trees,” the BoM cautioned.
“Stay inside if conditions outside appear dangerous.”
About 24,000 power customers across central and western Victoria were already off the grid after the storm brought down trees and damaged the network.
Powercor, which supplies power to 1.2m Victorian homes and businesses, said a significant amount of lightning had also impacted the grid and its crews were working to fix more than 200 faults.
“Ballarat and surrounding communities are the hardest hit areas, with around 13,000 customers without power,” a Powercor spokesperson said in a statement.
“Other areas impacted include Castlemaine, Bendigo, Hamilton, Ararat, Horsham and Maryborough, as well as some of the western suburbs of Melbourne.
“Our crews will continue to work to have power restored throughout the afternoon and evening, but given the volume of faults and the damage sustained, some customers will be without power overnight.”
Another 4,800 customers with Ausnet, which supplies power to all of the state’s east and south-east as well as much of the north, were also without power.
Ground operations at Melbourne international airport were halted for more than an hour on Tuesday afternoon as lightning and heavy rain lashed the city, causing widespread flight delays that were expected to continue into the evening.
Wild weather hit the Melbourne metropolitan area at about 3pm, having already wreaked havoc across central and western Victoria.
While some inbound planes were still able to land, passengers were unable to board or disembark aircrafts, and ground crews were unable to load or unload baggage or conduct usual operations such as movement of aerobridges.
The halting of ground operations is a standard safety procedure whenever there is lightning within 5km of the airfield, a spokesperson for Melbourne airport said.
(theguardian.com)
