By KATRINA BRANDON
HUFF, puff and gone.
A severe weather warning cloaked the state last Wednesday (October 22), with warnings stating wind speeds of up to 90km/h to 120km/h in some areas.
The Latrobe Valley received a large downpour and wind throughout the day, but nothing to write home about, or as some say, “classic Gippsland weather”.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) Latrobe Valley Observations Page, Latrobe Valley received wind speeds topping at 72km/h throughout the day.
Calling on people to be alert and ready, Vic Emergency stepped in to bring the warning to the forefront.
“We’re expecting a very significant severe weather event to impact Victoria from tomorrow (Wednesday, October 22),” Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch said.
“(The weather event) will see widespread damaging winds from the west of the state in the morning through to the east of the state in the afternoon.”
Mr Wiebusch stated that the areas most likely to be affected would be the Portland, Warrnambool, Geelong, Bellarine Peninsula, Melbourne and Gippsland areas. Still, he warned that other parts of the state would also feel the strong pressure system.
Warning of potential outages, Mr Wiebusch reiterated that Victorians need to ensure they are ready for whatever weather conditions are to come, not only for the event of the “storm”, but also over the next few months as they might become more frequent, or even in the event of other emergencies.
“We’re asking Victorians to ensure that they are prepared for power outages,” he said.
“This means be aware of fallen power lines that may be on the ground, but also ensure that you have charged your mobile devices tonight so that you can survive through those periods of power outages. Similarly, suppose you’ve undertaken burn-offs in recent days. In that case, we’re asking people to go and check their burns, to make sure that we don’t see any of those becoming escapes during these very significant and damaging winds.”
BRINGING in more of a need for a warning, Sunday (October 26) posed as a bigger weather event than Wednesday, October 23.
With heavy rainfall of up to 15-30mm, parts of the Latrobe Valley started to swim, while also being hit with winds of up to 20km per hour.
A moderate storm with chances of thunder and lightning were predicted with up to 25mm of rain expected to hit around late afternoon Sunday and to follow into early Monday (October 27) morning, easing just before ‘work’ hours.
More showers followed throughout Monday at a less intense degree with the band of rain heading towards New South Wales.
Looking further into the week, rain is expected cease, with temperatures rising to a high of 23 degrees until Friday, where there will be more rain going into the weekend.
IN other news, BoM has released its new website design.
Unfortunately, some users are upset with the new website design, stating that the old one was fine and that the new one is much harder to navigate. One user on a weather-obsessed Facebook page stated that the new look wasn’t “user-friendly”, and another noted that the look was more than disappointing.
“Absolute garbage when I went to check it, and I was lost. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
Despite some of the backlash, some didn’t mind the change.
To keep up with local weather, go to: https://www.bom.gov.au/
