Weather News

Storms soak southern WA

Thunderstorms broke records over Western Australia's Goldfields last night after bringing welcome rain to the state's parched South West Land Division on Monday.

A cold front and upper trough linked up to fuel storms across southern parts of the state during the last 24 hours, some producing bursts of heavy rain and damaging winds.

Most of the storms over the South West Land Division occurred on Monday, before contracting towards the east last night.

Katanning collect 36mm in just two hours on Monday morning, while a gauge at Mount Westdale, to the southwest of Perth, collected 49mm. This was the heaviest rain in at least nine years.

Perth only picked up 8mm on Monday morning. This may not seem like much but it's more than half a month's worth of rain for this time of year.

Two separate rounds of storms erupted over the Goldfields during the last 24 hours, resulting in 51mm of rain at Kalgoorlie by this morning. This was their heaviest December rain on record and almost doubles the previous mark of 38mm set back in December 1988. It was also the heaviest rain in 11 months.

Damaging winds in excess of 90km/h were recorded during storms at Leinster and Mount Keith early on Monday afternoon.

The latest rain is a welcome site following a string of dry months. Most areas in the southern half of Western Australia experienced below-average rainfall throughout spring, including the driest November in nine years across the South West Land Division.

Storms will continue to the east of about Kalgoorlie today before contracting back into northern parts of the state on Wednesday.

- Weatherzone

© Weatherzone 2016

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