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Ben Domensino, 11 Apr 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

Cleaning up after Seroja as severe weather spreads inland

Cleaning up after Seroja as severe weather spreads inland

Communities along the west coast of Western Australia are this morning assessing the damage caused by Severe Tropical Cyclone Seroja, which made landfall near Gregory last night. 

Seroja come barrelling towards the coast as a category three severe tropical cyclone late on Sunday. The fast-moving cyclone skimmed past Kalbarri at around 7pm shortly before crossing the coast near Gregory and tracking over land to the north of Geraldton.

Image: Radar image showing Severe Tropical Cyclone Seroja making landfall to the south of Kalbarri on Sunday evening.

A wind gust of 170 km/h was recorded at Kalbarri just after 7pm, along with over 100mm of rain by that point in the evening. Further south, the weather station at Geraldton Airport clocked a gust of 120km/h shortly before 9pm.

The graph below shows the recognisable drop-then-rise in air pressure at Geraldton Airport as the eye of Seroja approached and then moved away.

Image: Surface wind and air pressure observations from Geraldton Airport on Sunday and Monday morning. The spike in wind and drop in air pressure shows when the eye of Seroja passed close to the airport on Sunday night.

By 2am WST on Monday, Seroja had weakened to category two strength and was located near Dalwallinu, travelling at a brisk 66km/h towards the southeast. However by 5am WST, it had been downgraded to a Tropical Low near Merredin.

The system's fast movement across Western Australia has allowed tropical cyclone impacts to extend well inlandSouthern Cross had recorded a wind gust to 93 km/h by 4:30am on Monday.

Heavy rain and potentially damage winds will continue to spread over parts of the Wheatbelt and Goldfields into Monday morning. A severe weather warning is even in place down to the state's South East Coastal and Eucla districts. 

But while some communities are yet to see their worst weather from the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Seroja, the clean-up has already started in its wake.

There have been numerous reports of structural damage in areas near and to the north of Seroja's landfall location.

"So scary hiding under mattresses with my wife n 2 (sic) boys" was how Joel McIntyre described his experience on the Kalbarri Info Noticeboard on Facebook.

"In Northampton and have some one's roof against back shade house wall," said another post by Helene Parker.

Keep up to date with the latest tropical cyclone track maps and severe weather warnings during Monday for more information on this evolving weather event.

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