Pollyana

Seems we were lucky here tonight, still have power, just some rain; but there were a couple of threads earlier tonight about the storms in Sydney and Brisbane: having looked at the ABC site, I've found these reports :

QLD

About 7,000 homes in south-east Queensland remain without power due to severe storms that swept across the region this evening.
Two thousand are in Logan Beenleigh district while a similar number are without power on the Sunshine Coast.
One thousand homes are affected in Brisbane's east and bayside.
The storms brought heavy rain and strong winds but there has been little property damage.

VIC

The State Emergency Service (SES) has been called to hundreds of incidents around Melbourne after heavy rains caused minor flooding.
The worst affected areas are in the west of the city.
SES crews were called to Gisborne, Keilor, Baccus Marsh and Sunbury.
However, the shire of Melton, west of Melbourne, has been hardest hit with rising flood waters running off farmland into residential areas.
Most of Melton and surrounding areas have been affected.
Creeks have overflowed onto roads and the Melton State Emergency Service is warning motorists to take care.
"We've got a lot of paddocks that are flooded and threatening homes at the moment so we've got a lot of residents coming to us and asking for sandbags to facilitate their trenching," SES deputy controller Deborah Warren said.
A part of the Melton Highway has been inundated by floodwaters.

NSW

A clean-up is underway after wild storms swept across Sydney and surrounding areas this afternoon.
The worst affected areas were Gosford on the central coast and Ryde in Sydney's north-west.
The State Emergency Service (SES) is currently attending to around 1,350 calls for help after hail damaged homes and strong wind blew trees onto roofs.
Phil Campbell from the SES says the aftermath of the storms will keep volunteers busy for several days.
"The SES has some 400 volunteers in the field," he said.
Around 50,000 homes across the state are still without power mostly due to lightning strikes and trees falling on power lines.
The wild weather caused havoc on the roads during rush hour.
In one incident three people had to be rescued from their cars when they became trapped in rising flood water at Woolli Creek in Sydney's south.
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Hope all our cyber-mates are OK.

scissors

omg, you take care everyone thats over there,hope your all ok

tracey

Bordy

Can't believe the amount of rain here in Melbourne. Poor Laura, she will be on next plane back home I'm sure.

One months rain in 24 Hrs they are saying.

soapy©

aye it was pishin doon. but it wasnt real rain it was nice and warm lol

bondipom

I work near Ryde and thankfully left before the storm. A tree was knocked over where I drive every day. The roads must have been mayhem.

Hels

I have never seen weather like this in February!!

I woke up so many times through the night thinking our house was going to be lifted at the foundations and I was going to do a Dorothy and fly off to Kansas inside the house!!

Quite bizarre....although this region definatly needs the rain.

bondipom

Someone I worked with had a tree tear down his power line. He been without power for over 12 hours now. The traffic lights in the area were all failing. Must have been mayhem.

cresta57

We got off fairly lightly last night. Spectacular lightening storm lasted for hours but we only had 15mm of rainfall and no hailstones. Listening to the news this morning they were reporting golf ball sized hail in parts of NSW. Lumps of ice like that hurt like hell and can make a real mess of your car. Last February we had a violent storm and the hail was as big as cricket balls
Sounds unbelivable I know, type in a search on google for "storm produced cricket ball sized hail" and you'll get plenty of hits. Gympie times had a photo on the front page I sent it to a friend back home and he thought it was a snowball couldn't believe hail was as big as that.

gedge

For a couple of hours we couldn't see further than the balcony for the rain. Then like magic the sun comes out and we can see all the way to Bondi Junction (tis a long way).
If there's one thing you can say about the weather here, it's very changeable.

hevs

I'm hung over from lack of sleep.

By 5pm last night we'd had 44ml of rain, normally 45ml for the whole month! It continued to rain, or should i say, lash, till gone 5am, so god knows how much rain we finished up with!

Both my water tanks were overflowing by 3pm, they had a foot of water in each, the big ones 6ft high!!

The spa was half empty and the pool was about 7 inches lower than it should have been, both have over flowed.

The bloody mulch is all over the garden and in the pool

Does anyone reckon i could call Badge in his capacity as the CFA and get him to do my clean up

This am its lovely and sunny, its almost as if the weathers pretending it didn't happen!! I think 25's forcast today, then mid 30's tomorrow! Melbournes weather is MENTAL!!

Still, no massive damage done (other than that to my eye bags )

ABCDiamond

I agree it was a hell of downpour. I had to go outside and bring the guinea pigs in before they drowned. The water in the garden had become almost ankle deep. A 6" flower vase in the garden was overflowing with water after about 30 minutes.

I also unplugged the computer from mains and the phone line for the first time !!

And I kept a torch in my pocket all evening just in case, but we didn't lose power in the end

gedge

Is that the boyscout in you, or where you trying to impress the ladies?

HUP

Lovely and sunny it aint. Apparantly this morning we were just in the eye of the storm. As I look out the office window the skies are blackening and more rain is forecast

HUP

Didn't know ABC was related to Michael Jackson

Smudgo

Hi All

I should have had a 4x4 to drive down the road today due to the amount of stones, silt & branches that have been washed down. I was completley amazed at how much debris had been shifted. some new sights on route today included new water slide outside upper fern tree gully station on burwood highway, Flooded fields, flooded roads, fallen trees and Trams in middle of road due to no power !! Took 1 1/2 hours to do 3/4 hour journey !

Apparently 120mm of rain fell in Melbourne, the highest level since records began being kept in 1856 ! to those in the uk that isnt a lot but when the month of january had 45mm in total you may understand why it created chaos.

cheers

Smudgo

PS check out the storm pics at the age http://www.theage.com.au/photogaller...228805235.html