Line of storms lashes Northern Rivers

THE Northern Rivers region was battered by a line of severe storms on Sunday night, with wind gusts reaching up to 119km per hour at Cape Byron shortly after 8pm.

The peak gust was just 1km per hour shy of the speed recorded when Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred struck the coast on March 7.

NSW Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist, Jiwon Park, said the storm arrived after a hot day, with temperatures in the low to mid-30s, followed by a southerly change.

“When storms form a line it tends to have an increased risk of damaging winds,” he said.

“90km wind is the threshold for damaging winds that we use to issue a warning.

 

“We also saw widespread moderate to heavy rainfall and frequent lightning.”

The heaviest rainfall fell in The Channon, about 20km north of Lismore, where 76mm was recorded.

“Other locations in the Northern Rivers had 30 to 50mm,” Park said.

NSW SES Mullumbimby deputy unit commander, Catherine Garvan, said there were a few trees down across the Byron Shire, including one that fell on a garage at Broken Head.

“It was quite a big tree, so it’s pretty smashed up,” she said. “It gave the woman who lives there a hell of a shock.

“It would have been frightening because it was pretty close to the house. She was lucky it went the way it did and not the other way, as it would have landed on the house.”

But overall, she said, the shire got off lightly in this week’s storm.

“I think a lot of trees that were going to come down came down during the cyclone, and a lot of people have got their yards cleared,” she said.