The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 5.47pm as Western Australia braced for damaging winds and heavy rainfall, with the heaviest weather expected to hit over the next several hours.
The warning covered parts of four districts — the Lower West, South West, South Coastal and Great Southern — as a cold front moved northeast through the South West district and triggered showers and a few embedded thunderstorms. The bureau said those storms may produce heavy rainfall in some locations, while damaging winds were also possible in the northern portions of the warning area.
Collie, Harvey, Denmark and Pinjarra were among the places named in the alert. The bureau said severe thunderstorms were likely to bring damaging winds and heavy rainfall that could lead to flash flooding across the warning area.
The warning came after Perth residents had already been told to brace for potential severe weather on Sunday and the public holiday Monday. For people watching perth weather closely, the message was that the wet spell is arriving with force rather than easing into the week.
Jessica Lingard said today and tonight were probably likely to be the heaviest rainfall, and that there would still be a fair amount of rain around, especially tomorrow morning. That means the main risk is not just one sharp burst of storms but a stretch of unsettled weather that could keep roads wet and waterways under pressure into the next day.
The pattern is familiar in Western Australia, where this kind of rainfall event typically occurs once or twice a year. But the timing matters now because the warning was active heading into a period when many people would be moving around for the weekend and the public holiday, making flash flooding and damaging winds harder to ignore.
The immediate question is not whether the front will pass, but how much rain falls before it does. With severe thunderstorms expected to remain a threat over the next several hours, the safest assumption for the warning area is that the worst of the weather is still ahead.
