Unless you live under an actual rock, you'd know that Victoria is currently in the midst of a severe weather event. But thankfully, the end of this blustery chaos is in sight, as those in the know in the weather world have assured the public that the extreme wind gusts will be ceasing shortly.
Over the last week, the entire state has been ravaged by damaging winds, as strong cold fronts have moved across the southern end of the country. In the early hours of Monday, September 2, there were destructive wind speeds that were equivalent to a category two or three cyclone. So yes, if you were lying in bed thinking that the gusts outside sounded particularly strong, you were right. Wind speeds were in excess of 100 km/h in most of the state, and it's been dubbed 'the worst weather of the year'.
And it wasn't just regional areas that were heavily impacted, some of the inner suburbs of Melbourne also copped a battering. In the middle of the night, there was a 113 km/h wind gust recorded in St Kilda harbour, and a 102 km/h gust in Essendon. But it was in regional and rural locations where the wind hit hardest, with a gust of 146 km/h recorded in Wilson's Promontory and a 133 km/h gust in Mount Gellibrand.
When Victorians awoke on Monday morning, it was a chaotic scene. There were more than 159,000 homes without power and more than 1000 calls were made to State Emergency Services for fallen trees. In Melbourne, suburbs like Dromana, Hastings, Flinders, Red Hill, Mt Martha, Mount Eliza and Frankston South were heavily impacted by outages, and many trains services in the south east were suspended due to damage from the wild winds.
But thankfully, we've been assured that the worst of the weather is over. According to the experts at the Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria won't receive another destructive winds warning in this episode of extreme weather, but a warning for damaging winds remains in place for now. The gusts will ease through Monday evening into Tuesday, with a slight strengthening on Wednesday, but nowhere near as intense as the scenes on Sunday night. However, we'd understand if you suspend your belief of that for now, because as we speak, parts of Melbourne are being battered by hail storms. Ahhh, our city in spring is so lovely.
Well, at least we randomly had some nice, warm weather last month. For now, we'll continue to batten the hatches and stay cosy inside.
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