A woman has been killed by a falling tree on the New South Wales-Victoria border as a severe weather system brought damaging winds to Australia’s south-east.
Destructive cold fronts were forecast to move north to Sydney and coastal NSW on Monday after bringing strong winds and flooding to Tasmania and Victoria overnight, according to Christie Johnson, a senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology.
Victoria’s State Emergency Service received more than 1,900 calls overnight, with more coming in on Monday morning. There were more than 1,000 reports of fallen trees and more than 350 homes damaged by winds, according to its chief operations officer, Tim Wiebusch.
More than 150,000 customers were without power in Victoria and more than 25,000 in Tasmania early on Monday after energy distributors reported outages.
The bureau issued a severe weather warning for damaging, locally destructive winds across the NSW coast and most of Victoria.
“The strongest winds for NSW are expected this morning, with the potential for damaging winds stretching from the Victorian border right up to the Hunter district,” Johnson said.
Gusty winds forced authorities to cut speed limits on the Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge to 40km/h.
Southern and alpine NSW had already received 80 emergency calls on Monday morning as winds pushed up out of Victoria, according to the NSW State Emergency Service.
The SES was expecting damage similar to that experienced on Wednesday, when destructive winds led to 1,100 calls, a spokesperson said.
Parts of the Victorian and NSW coasts are set to face abnormally high tides, erosion risks and dangerous surf conditions.
Coastal NSW also faces an elevated fire risk, with an extreme fire danger warning for the Illawarra and high fire danger in greater Sydney – with a total fire ban in both regions on Monday.
NSW police said a woman had died after a tree fell on a cabin in Moama. Emergency services were called just before 4am on Monday and officers found the body of a 63-year-old woman.
A 63-year-old man was treated by paramedics for minor injuries and taken to hospital.
The wild weather was forecast to ease on Monday in Victoria and Tasmania and overnight in NSW.
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“The system is moving eastwards so we are expecting that the wet and windy weather will ease through Monday as that cold front moves … along the east coast and out into the Tasman Sea,” Johnson said.
Wind gusts up to 120km/h were possible until Monday afternoon.
Rivers across Tasmania were at risk of flooding, with 20 flood warnings in place after parts of the state saw rainfalls of up to 60mm over the weekend.
The Bom expected the Derwent River to surpass the major flood level on Monday morning, inundating or isolating roads and homes.
Tasmania’s SES warned residents to leave their homes immediately in towns surrounding the Derwent River near Meadowbank and Macquarie Plains. About half the residents had evacuated on Monday morning, according to Tasmania SES executive director Mick Lowe.
Tasmania was battered by severe weather at the weekend, with significant damage to trees, properties, power lines and infrastructure.
