By Eleanor Wilson
Melbourne’s South East was dealt a significant lashing of rain over the weekend, which saw the state hit with over half the April rainfall average in 12 hours.
Hampton Park and Cardinia Reservoir were both knocked with 55 mm of rain, while Berwick recorded 50 mm.
Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Michael Efron said the impact of tropical cyclone Ilsa, which ravaged through Western Australia last week, contributed significantly to the weekend’s rainfall in Victoria.
Across the state, the rainfall was felt most heavily in the East between Saturday evening and into the early hours of Sunday.
“We did see some impacts on the roads, there was very localised flash flooding in some areas and that was mostly because the gutters and drains couldn’t handle that amount of rainfall,” Mr Efron said.
The highest rainfall in the state was concentrated in the Dandenong Ranges, where Scoresby received 58 mm and Mount Dandenong received 63 mm.
This was almost double the rainfall in Melbourne’s West, where 34 mm fell in Point Cook and 33mm was recorded for Sunbury.
Narre Warren SES unit controller Damian Burns said his unit received 16 calls for assistance across the weekend, including two rescue assists.
“We get approximately 700 jobs a year, which averages to about two a day and a lot of them are clustered in events such as this, but we would have 2 or 3 calls on an average weekend, so it was a busy weekend for us,” he said.
Mr Burns said the downpour tested the integrity of many roofs across the municipality.
“We also received many assistance requests from households scared about flood waters threatening their houses,” he said.
Mr Efron said the state has experienced above average rainfall for April so far.
“We’ve still got two weeks of April to go, so there’s a decent chance we’ll see potentially well above average rainfall, depending on how much rainfall we get in the next couple of weeks.
he said.
Thankfully, outlooks show a much more settled week weather wise this week.
“There will still be a few showers around, especially on Wednesday, but the weekend is looking quite settled, so it will be a nice change from what we’ve had just recently.”
