Freak Canberra windstorm leaves thousands without power and motorcyclist in hospital

The windstorm that swept through the territory on Friday evening has left thousands without power, felled trees and put one motorcyclist in hospital.

As of eight am Saturday morning, ActewAGL said 2500 customers remained without power, after 16,000 initially experienced power outages on Friday evening. The majority of those still affected were in parts of Aranda, Kambah, Spence and Scullin.

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But the company said the storm had caused "major damage" to its electricity network, bringing down multiple power poles and damaging service cables at homes across the ACT. 

The ACT State Emergency Service said more than 20 teams would continue with the major clean-up effort across the capital on Saturday, after receiving a total of 750 calls for help.

In Queanbeyan, a motorcyclist was transported to hospital after a near miss with a falling tree. 

A police spokesman said the rider swerved and fell off his bike after a tree fell on the road in front of him. He said the rider, who had minor injuries, was lucky to escape without serious harm.

The temperature dropped from 35.8 degrees to 26.1 degrees in nine minutes following the rain on Friday after a searing top of 39.6. Wind gusts reached 69 kilometres per hour in Tuggeranong and up to 54 kilometres per hour in other parts of Canberra.

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While the weather is expected to be milder on Saturday, Canberrans have been urged to exercise caution near large trees that may continue to drop branches.

Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Zach Porter explained the storm: "There's been a low-pressure trough tracking across inland New South Wales, it's been moving across the south-east of the state.

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"Ahead of the trough we had quite hot temperatures. Behind the trough there was cooler air ... that creates quite strong wind gusts as that tracks across.

"We knew winds were going to be quite strong and gusty today, we knew something like this could have been possible."

Part of Braddon resident Grant Philpott's roofing peeled off and landed in a nearby tennis court as a result of the strong winds.

The sky lights of his apartment were also ripped out. Mr Philpott was at work during the gusts but his wife was home at the time. The family, including his two-year-old daughter, were deciding where to stay on Friday night.

"[My wife] didn't quite believe it I think and called me and said the roof is missing and I didn't believe her for quite a while," Mr Philpott said.

"She said it was very loud and quite a shock of course because the roof was gone."

Also on Friday afternoon, two cars crashed on the nine-light roundabout on the Barton Highway.

Two lanes of traffic were closed towards Gundaroo Drive. Police were not able to give any further information.

A severe weather warning was issued for south-east New South Wales on Friday and Essential Energy reported 1500 homes were affected by unplanned outages that evening.

For emergency storm help ring the ACTSES on 132 500. For life threatening situations call Emergency Triple Zero (000).

Missed me by about two centimetres. Stay safe #Canberra peeps pic.twitter.com/Aqbs61m5ju

— Belinda Merhab (@belinda_merhab) January 13, 2017