A summer storm that pummelled WA's Wheatbelt and Perth's eastern suburbs on a 41 degree day is continuing to cause major headaches for authorities and residents in its path.
Key points:
- The storm arrived during the midst of a heatwave
- It caused flash flooding and widespread damage
- Thousands are still without power and essential services
A short and sharp downpour caused flash flooding across the metropolitan area and further inland on Tuesday afternoon, tearing down trees and damaging roofs.
Almost 24 hours later on Wednesday, residents and authorities in several towns in the Wheatbelt reported having problems accessing internet and phone coverage due to widespread power outages.
WA Police said on Wednesday morning communication outages may make it difficult for people in the area to call the police assistance line or the emergency triple-zero number.
Western Power said the storm caused significant damage to its network from the Wheatbelt to the Perth Hills, cutting power to about 34,000 homes and businesses at the peak of the storm.
About 14,000 homes and businesses were still without power on Thursday morning, down from 22,000 the previous day.
Western Power said it's working to restore power to remaining affected customers but have warned it could take days for some areas.
"We have about 100 poles down, there's hundreds of kilometres of conductors and seven transmission lines … so that gives you a scale of the size of the impact of both the storm activity and that really high fire weather," acting CEO Jacqui Hall said.
Ms Hall said crews were prioritising the recovery of critical infrastructure.
"We are deploying all are possible resources to the restoration effort," she said.
"That includes the cancelling of planned work where it's not critical and redeploying some of our regional crews to the metro and Wheatbelt areas to be able to facilitate the restoration and repair effort."
A Telstra spokesperson confirmed its network had been impacted.
"We are working urgently with Western Power to restore services and have made good progress so far. We are sending our technicians out with portable generators where and when it is safe to do so."
The Water Corporation has warned people in the Central Wheatbelt they may experience supply disruption due to the power issues.
"Low pressure or no water supply could potentially affect customers across the Central Wheatbelt and south-eastern Moore electorates," the corporation said in a statement.
Widespread damage
A tree branch fell through the home of Mundaring resident Peter Ketteridge, who described the frantic minutes as the storm passed through his suburb.
"It was 41 degrees, I was sitting outside, and within the space of about five minutes it dropped down to mid-20s and the hail started, rain was intense, a lot of water fell very quickly," he said.
"A lot of rain, hail, thunder, lightning … half the marri tree came down on top of the roof. Luckily no one was inside at the time.
"I'd just been talking to the tree lopper about removing that particular tree … actually have to do it now because it's unbalanced."
Mr Ketteridge said it was very fortunate no one was hurt.
"It's back to how it was before the storm came, it was just amazing how quickly it changed, the temperature drop was just incredible."
Perth was in the grip of a three-day heatwave on Tuesday, with the temperature topping out at 41 degrees Celsius.
The Bureau of Meteorology had issued a severe thunderstorm warning for a large swathe of land stretching inland from Perth's eastern suburbs.
Power was cut out to about 34,000 homes across the Wheatbelt and Perth metropolitan area at the peak of the storm cell.
Western Power said the weather system was so severe it was too dangerous to send crews out, but they hoped to once it passed to get an estimate on when they could return power to homes.
Lake Chittering saw 28mm of rain fall in just 30 minutes just after midday, while in Millendon, about 30km north-east of Perth, a 94kph wind gust was recorded just before 1pm.
Aran Williams shared with the ABC a photo of his parents house in Bindoon.
"Lost the patio roof and lifted the main house roof on the western side. All rooms now leaking," he said.
Bushfires flare up
Lightning strikes from the severe thunderstorm had authorities on high alert and a new bushfire emergency alert was issued for the Wheatbelt town of Wongan Hills on Tuesday afternoon.
A large smoke plume was seen billowing from a parcel of land just north of the town just before 1pm.
Firefighters managed to control the blaze quickly and it has now been downgraded to an advice.
A fire that started on Friday near Gingin and went on to destroy two homes also briefly flared up to an emergency level.
That bushfire also gutted the site of a proposed $100 million luxury motorsport country club north of Perth.
A third fire forced the closure of Albany Highway east of the town of Boddington.
Visit Emergency WA, call DFES on 133 337, follow DFES on Twitter or listen to ABC Local Radio to stay up to date.