Cyclonic winds hit Port Phillip Bay
by Bob Maxwell on 3 Apr 2008
Mornington chaos Joel Wright
Melbourne's vast Port Phillip Bay is shallow and open. Winds and waves on the Bay can produce tough boating conditions. But yesterday’s wild weather with winds gusting to more than 70 knots was the strongest in memory.
John Hart, the commodore of the Mornington Yacht Club in the southern part of Port Phillip Bay, said the winds gusted to more than 70 knots at the Club House.
Five metre waves crashed over the Mornington pier and more than twenty boats were smashed onto the rocks or the beach. A large motor boat sank at its mooring and the pier was damaged. 'It was the worst seas ever seen at Mornington,' he said.
The Weather Bureau's severe weather expert Kevin Parkyn, said the magnitude of the storms was unusual for this time of year.
A burst of cold air from above the Southern Ocean had collided with seasonally warm northerly winds to trigger the event. The genesis was cyclone Pancho that rounded the south-western corner of Australia, causing mayhem across south-eastern Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.
Two people were killed in Melbourne and the State Emergency Service had taken at least 2,200 calls by yesterday evening. At the height of the storm the SES took distress calls at the rate of one every seven seconds, as some gusts reached cyclone force.
As the system progresses, there is now a deep low off southern Tasmania and wind gusts above 90 knots have just been recorded at Maatsuyker Island.
More news and weather pix will follow.
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