Overview
- A sudden storm cell struck Alice Springs on Monday and produced heavy rain, hail and recorded wind gusts of about 96 km/h that toppled trees and power infrastructure.
- Power and Water initially reported about 9,000 properties lost electricity and by early Tuesday had restored roughly 5,000 homes while about 4,000 remained without power as crews staged repairs.
- The storm caused widespread structural and vehicle damage, including ceiling and roof damage at the Alice Springs Hilton DoubleTree and closures or outages at multiple schools.
- Northern Territory Emergency Services, local council and extra Power and Water crews from Darwin, Tennant Creek and Katherine are conducting large-scale clean-up and safety checks and urging people to avoid fallen trees and powerlines and to follow SecureNT updates.
- The Bureau of Meteorology says this event is an early sign of the October–April severe storm season and forecasts more thunderstorms and damaging winds for Alice Springs and parts of eastern Australia later this week.