Day turned into night in minutes as a severe storm ripped through Melbourne on Thursday morning, delivering downpours and flash flooding.
There was also an early morning deluge in Canberra, with further warnings for both cities – as well as Sydney – throughout Thursday.
“I had to pull over because my windscreen wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain – the lightning every three or four seconds was bang, bang, bang – it’s pretty full on,” one caller told Melbourne’s 3AW.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Melbourne just after 8am, as a surprise storm cell smashed Geelong and surrounds and moved towards the city.
The sky darkened and up to 13 millimetres of rain fell across Melbourne in the next hour, just in time for the morning peak hour.
Peter Phoebe said he raced the storm to work in Southbank.
“As I was walking to it at about 8.30, the skyline looked like the end of day scene in Ghostbusters,” he told the Nine network.
Powercor said electricity was out to more than 12,000 homes and businesses after more than 10,000 lightning strikes took down poles and lines.
By 10am, the bureau said the risk to the metro area had eased. But early on Thursday afternoon it issued new storm warnings for other parts of Victoria, including Bendigo, Shepparton, Euroa, Rochester, Mansfield and Mount Buller.
“Severe thunderstorms are continuing ahead of an upper trough, with large hail possible from the thunderstorm south-west of Shepparton,” BOM tweeted.
Canberra, meanwhile, was also battered by thunder and lightning early on Thursday. The national capital had 15.4 millimetres of rain between 9-10.30am when the storm hit.
The Bureau of Meteorology had forecast a “chance of a thunderstorm, possibly severe”, but did not issue a severe weather warning.
Sydney could be in the firing line later in the day, with storm warnings issued for the Hunter and Central Tablelands, as well as Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle.
“Severe storms could contain heavy rain, large hail and damaging winds,” the BOM said.
Outside of storms, the harbour city is enjoying a spectacular start to autumn. It is on track to register its warmest March in 165 years of records.
“Two periods of very hot weather and an absence of any significant cold spells have made the last few weeks to feel more like the middle of summer than the start of autumn in Sydney,” forecaster Weatherzone wrote on Thursday.
“The city has exceeded 36 degrees twice so far this month, a feat that has only happened during March on one other occasion since 1859.”
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