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A cold front swept across southwestern Australia on Sunday, delivering rain and gusty winds - and there is a second, stronger front, set to sweep through today.
The satellite shows a large cloudband off the southwest, along with speckled cloud in behind that (indicating a chilly airmass). This is from the second, more powerful front still to come through. The cloudband over the Bight is from the first front, now weakening as it heads eastwards.
The first front delivered some impressive rain totals, locally more than 40mm, but most in the region of 5 to 15 mm. A cold front ensures that all areas receive rain, as the rain moves through in a band. Here are the rain totals since the reset of 9am Sunday, with more falling in the southwest corner before 9am.
There is another burst of rain as the second front crosses through today. Anything green is 5 to 15 mm, yellow more than 15mm.
The lines on the map detail the pressure pattern - and you can see where they sharply turn over eastern WA, where the cold front is located by this evening.
The first front brought isolated gusts of 90 to 100 km/h, with Cape Leeuwin recording 119km/h yesterday afternoon.
Today's front is likely to bring similar winds - but we could see more gusts around the 100 km/h mark.
From the bureau:
West to northwesterly DAMAGING WINDS averaging 50 to 65 km/h with peak gusts of around 100 km/h are likely to redevelop about the second front over the South West district from early Monday morning, extending to the Lower West and South Coastal districts, including Perth, by the late morning, and the remainder of the warning area from around midday. Winds will then shift to the southwest behind this front, with DAMAGING WINDS likely to persist throughout the afternoon and into the evening.
Conditions are then expected to ease from the west during Monday evening, but DAMAGING WINDS may persist over southeast coastal parts of the warning area into Tuesday morning.
The front that crossed on Sunday produced weather that is about typical for this time of year. The front crossing on Monday is stronger, people in the southwest of WA experience fronts as windy as this about 5 times per year. This second front will be the strongest front of the year to date.
Conditions rapidly ease into Tuesday, and the southwest has a front pass to the south on Tuesday as a calming ridge of high pressure controls the weather for a few days - while the action picks up in the southeast of the country.
