Autumn storms leave homes without power in Tasmania

Hundreds of homes were left without electricity after Tasmania was hit by strong winds of up to 140kmph.

In Hobart, TasNetworks, the power and telecoms supplier, said the wild winds left more than 2,000 homes without power across the island on Wednesday.

This year’s autumn has been an interesting one for Australia so far. Record high temperatures were registered in Queensland, rain fell over 90 percent of the land mass and storms damaged Victoria.

This was followed by snow and now the first frost has arrived.

A succession of rain belts has swept from the Great Australian Bight to cross the southeast mainland and Tasmania. Western Tasmania caught a soaking as frontal activity became more frequent and pronounced.

With all but one day this month delivering rain to Tasmania, Strahan has already exceeded the average amount of rainfall for May, with 172mm so far. Meanwhile, Liawenee collected 165 percent of its monthly average already.

As recently as Tuesday, Queensland was basking in record heat with Rockhampton touching 33C, witnessing its hottest day in May for 77 years.

It was a humid one too with the heat stress limiting recommended work to half the usual. Thursday was back down to 29C.

The autumn cold has now swept through Queensland and Northern Territory – Thursday morning was the coldest of the year for virtually all of those two regions with some places as much as seven degrees colder than any other morning.

Brisbane in southern Queensland woke up to 9C with a frost in the western suburbs. Darwin, on the north coast of Northern Territory and only 12 degrees of latitude south of the equator, ended its run of extremely warm May nights and dipped to 22C.

In the red heart of Australia, Alice Springs dropped below 5C on Wednesday night, colder than any night this year by two degrees.

Wet and windy weather will continue across Melbourne and Tasmania for at least two more days while the rest of Australia settles into a cooler, settled spell of autumn.