Flood Alert As Hailstones And Arctic Gales Lash The State

The Sunday Age

Sunday November 23, 2008

JOHN ELDER, LIZA POWER, JANAE HOUGHTON

AN ANTARCTIC blast of cold air sweeping Victoria yesterday brought snow in the mountains, hailstorms to Melbourne and gale-force winds and heavy rain in Gippsland.

Gippsland residents were buffeted by severe winds and heavy rain last night - more than 100 millimetres was expected. At 10pm, winds were gaining strength, reaching up to 40km/h in Sale and expected to reach gale force.

Mitchell River Tavern owner Christine Carrison said few drinkers had ventured out to the pub. "It's pretty quiet here, everyone seems to be bracing themselves for the weather. It's very windy and the rain has been coming down for a couple of hours and it is starting to get heavier, but so far things haven't been too bad," she said.

Community meetings were held in Newry, Lakes Entrance and Orbost to tell locals what to do when the severe weather hit.

The State Emergency Service urged Gippsland residents to follow their flood plans and move stock and equipment to higher ground.

About 600 SES volunteers were on standby, armed with chainsaws, ropes and 50,000 sandbags as flood warnings were issued for the Tambo, Mitchell and Snowy rivers.

Strong winds were predicted, with gusts up to 120km/h in coastal and alpine areas.

Clint Saarinen, SES regional manager at Bairnsdale, said serious floods were expected in Bairnsdale and Orbost, while some flooding was expected in the Latrobe Valley. Another 5000 SES volunteers around the state were preparing to go to Gippsland if needed.

Yesterday the SES had received 270 calls statewide - mainly for fallen trees and power lines. The vast majority of the call-outs were in the Melbourne area.

Stephen King, duty forecaster with the Bureau of Meteorology, said hailstorms yesterday morning had left parts of the western suburbs covered in white, causing some residents to report snow.

Real snow fell at Ballarat and Mount Hotham, where the temperature dropped to -4.4 degrees early yesterday morning and was still at -2.7 degrees at lunchtime.

"It's the coldest place in the state," said Mr King.

The wild weather is the result of the presence of cold Antarctic air over the past few days, which formed a low pressure system off the NSW South Coast yesterday, moving south-east. Melbourne's major catchments received an average of 25 millimetres since Friday - with 15 millimetres falling in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday, and another 10 millimetres to 2pm, a Melbourne Water spokesman said. More is expected today.

"It's generally a few days before we really know what impact rain over the catchments has on storage levels, because of the time it takes for run-off to make its way into reservoirs," he said.

Melbourne's storages are currently at 33.2 per cent, compared with 40.2 per cent at the same time last year - a difference of about 124 billion litres.

In southern Queensland, meanwhile, three women have been hurt as strong winds brought down trees. Two of the women were taken to hospital after a tree fell on their car in Brisbane's south.

The third woman was taken to hospital with serious head and neck injuries, after being struck by a palm tree at Algester about 11.30am.

© 2008 The Sunday Age

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