Australia weather: Bureau of Meteorology slammed by Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate over emergency weather alert

The Mayor of the Gold Coast has called out the Bureau of Meteorology for sending out a severe weather alert after the storm had already began wreaking havoc.

Mayor Tom Tate said he received an alert from the BOM at 9pm on Christmas, warning severe storms were set to hammer down on the coast from 8.45pm.

Residents were then alerted via the emergency app a short time later.

‘I think it’s unforgivable,’ he said.

‘We will be talking to BOM about what’s going on regarding the warning because we can’t warn people… it’s not good enough.

‘We’ve got to sort it so it doesn’t happen again.’

Mr Tate said wind gusts measuring up to 160km/hour reached the threshold of a category two cyclone.

The Bureau responded and said they had sent out several weather alerts throughout Christmas Day.

‘The Bureau issued several severe thunderstorm warnings for destructive winds, giant hail and heavy rain throughout Monday 25 December for the Gold Coast and Scenic Rim (as well as for other areas of Queensland),’ the statement said.

‘We also communicated the risk of severe weather impacting eastern Australia on Sunday 24 December and Friday 22 December.’ 

A post on the BOM Queensland’s Twitter account shows a severe thunderstorm warning issued at 9.04pm on Monday.

‘Severe thunderstorm #warning continues for southeast Queensland. Giant hail is likely in a thunderstorm near Rathdowney. The warning may soon be extended to include Brisbane and Gold Coast,’ the alert read.

It comes after a nine-year-old girl was killed in a storm in Queensland after she was swept into a drain – pushing the death-toll up to nine.

Mia Holland-McCormack, 9, died on Boxing Day after being swept away by flood waters when she jumped over the back fence of her family’s home in Rochedale South, in southeast Brisbane.

Mia, who was severely autistic, was known to have liked ‘parks and water’ according to social media posts from locals who frantically searched for her.

Brisbane Rugby identity David ‘Mario’ Logan and schoolteacher Stephen ‘Taity’ Tait were also pronounced dead after a boat holding 11 people capsized near Green Island, in Moreton Bay, at about 5.30pm on Boxing Day.

A Tingalpa man, 59, was confirmed by police to be the third person to die from the accident when he was discovered on Wednesday morning following desperate attempts to find him overnight. Eight others were rescued from the vessel.

Robyn Carman, 59, died just 100m from her Gold Coast home on Christmas night after being struck by a falling tree.

Paramedics attempted to save Ms Carman in the midst of an ‘unprecedented’ cyclonic storm that smashed the area throughout Christmas and Boxing Day. 

Queensland Police confirmed the death of another woman on Wednesday afternoon after three people were dragged into the Mary River, near Gympie, by flood waters.

The body of the 46-year-old Southside woman was recovered around midday on Wednesday in the Gympie weir. 

A GoFundMe has since been set up to support Mia’s parents, Ryan and Kayla, in the wake of her tragic death.

‘On Boxing Day evening the unthinkable happened when Mia was found unresponsive in floodwaters,’ the fundraising page reads.

‘Mia loved adventures and getting up to mischief, however being severely autistic this was additionally challenging for her amazing parents Ryan and Kayla.

‘On the evening of 26 December 2023, Mia took off over the back fence at home, just before a storm hit. She was found a few kms from home in the water unresponsive.

‘As this devastating news comes to the harsh light of reality, so too does the added costs Ryan and Kayla are about to take on, already being a time where everyone is stretched after Christmas.’

Shortly after police announced the third death in the Moreton Bay boating incident, acting Chief Superintendent Andrew Pilotto described the weather conditions as ‘horrific’.

Mr Pilotto said the group had been on an annual fishing trip when they encountered rough conditions with ‘visibility down to 2m’.

‘It would have been very difficult to survive in those conditions. Anywhere, let alone out on Moreton Bay,’ he said.

‘I would remind all pleasure craft, check the weather and be aware that the weather is moving in very quickly at this time of year.’

Mr Pilotto thanked water police, volunteer police rescue and the coast guard for their ‘exceptional bravery’ in reaching the boat during the peak of the storm and saving eight people. 

‘The storm was still raging when they were rescued. I can’t tell you how long, it would have been less than 45 minutes,’ he said. 

An investigation into ‘all aspects’ of the tragedy will be conducted by police.

Mr Logan was remembered as ‘one of the best’ by the Brother’s Rugby League Club where he volunteered.

‘In a club that has so many stalwarts and legends, ‘Mario’ was right up the top as one of Brothers’ most favourite son,’ Geoff Rodgers, the club’s president, said according to the ABC.

‘The Brothers family is so saddened by Mario’s passing but we will always remember how privileged we have been to have had him in our lives.’

Iona College, the school where Mr Tait taught, issued a statement prior to his death being confirmed asking for ‘Ionians… to pray for Steve, his family and everyone affected’.

‘The College will continue to support Steve’s family during this time,’ the statement added. 

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Queensland Police announced they had located the body of a 46-year-old Southside woman in the Gympie Weir.

She had been dragged into the Mary River alongside two other people on Tuesday, one managing to clamour to safety.

A 40-year-old Gympie woman was located on Tuesday night around 7pm

Almost 30,000 people went without power throughout Melbourne and Victoria’s east after being hit with ‘unplanned’ outages.

A spokesperson for AusNet told Daily Mail Australia that  customers in Doreen, Hurstbridge, Mernda, Arthurs Creek, Yarrambat, South Morang and surrounding suburbs lost power at 9:51am.

The outage was due to a failure at the Doreen zone substation, with technical support being ‘dispatched to site and all customers were restored by 1pm’.

The storms have also left about 92,000 people in southeast Queensland without power, over 8,000 of which in Tambourine Mountain west of the Gold Coast.

Queensland Energy Minister Mark de Brenni said storms had felled some 950 powerlines across the state’s southeast on Tuesday, 800 of which were on the Gold Coast.

‘We’re likely to see that number grow throughout today as our crews are able and better weather conditions to make more assessments,’ Mr de Brenni told the media.

‘So, the task could actually become more significant before it gets better.

‘We have all available crews deployed (and) we have a number of crews coming from Brisbane’.

Mr de Brenni said the priority was to first restore power to critical infrastructure, including water treatment, with a plan to be made in coming days for impacted homes.

The body of a 40-year-old woman was pulled from the Mary River in Gympie after reports two women had been swept away in floodwaters near the Kidd Bridge. 

A 46-year-old woman remains missing with the search to resume on Wednesday. 

In Victoria, a woman who is yet to be formally identified was found dead at a campground in Buchan in the state’s Gippsland region. 

Emergency services were called to the campsite following reports cars were underwater and people were sheltering on a bridge to escape flash flooding. 

Buchan copped up to 69.4mm of rain in just half an hour on Tuesday.  

A Victorian man has died after being struck in the head by a falling tree branch while camping on a private property in Caringal, in the state’s east. 

Emergency services tried to revive him but he died at the scene on Tuesday. 

Fallen power lines, felled trees smashing cars and homes, and several drivers crashing into poles have kept emergency crews busy since Christmas Day.

Gympie was hit by a severe thunderstorm on Tuesday that uprooted trees as a band of storms rolled through Queensland’s southeast.

Golf ball size hail was spotted at Zillmere in Brisbane’s north while 62mm of rain was recorded in Jindalee, in the city’s southwest, in just one hour. 

Queensland Ambulance Service assistant commissioner Andrew Hebbron warned people to avoid travelling on the roads during severe weather.

‘An absolutely tragic set of circumstances and a good reminder for the moment and especially today that if you don’t need to be on the roads today we encourage you not to be,’ he said.

In Jimboomba, south of Brisbane, Betty and David Hall’s ceiling collapsed.

‘It was scary, I was panicking,’ Ms Hall said.

‘We lost power as well.’

It came after wild storms on Christmas Day left thousands of homes without power with more than 120,000 people without electricity as of Tuesday afternoon. 

Of those, 82,000 were on the Gold Coast, where 700 power lines were down.

‘There’ll be a couple of days of work there to rectify that,’ Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said.

‘We’ve got powerlines down, even at our theme parks, so we’re prioritising that as well.’

The Queensland Ambulance Service said paramedics’ workloads ‘surged significantly’ as storms hit the Gold Coast on Monday night.

‘We saw everything from people being injured in their homes from damage that was incurred by the storms to some less serious electrocutions,’ Mr Hebbron said.

A man in his 70s was hurt when a tree branch fell onto a tent in Helensvale. He was in a stable condition in hospital with pelvic and back injuries.

A collapsed roof put a man in his 90s in hospital with a head injury, where he remained in a stable condition.

The severe storms forced Dreamworld and other Gold Coast theme parks to close on Boxing Day for safety checks. 

A major flood warning was issued for the Logan River on Tuesday, with flood waters already spilling over the banks at 8.7m at Beaudesert, at the Scenic Rim region.

Wind gusts of up to 106km whipped through the seaside tourist hotspot late into the evening on Christmas Day, felling trees and sending debris flying through the street.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles said the SES had reported concrete power poles being taken down by the ferocity of the weather.

‘It will take days to get all of them repaired. I spoken to the mayors of Logan and Gold Coast, the situation is in hand through their local disaster management,’ the premier told media on Tuesday.

Deputy Premier Cameron Dick said the fierce storm ‘can only be described as a mini cyclone’, with emergency crews working overtime to restore power.

Power utility company Energex has warned that damage from the storms is ‘catastrophic and widespread’ and some customers will be without power for days.

‘This is an extremely dangerous situation,’ the power utility said on Boxing Day. 

‘If you need to be outside, watch for fallen powerlines – report any you see ASAP to 000 or 13 19 62, stay well away and warn others.

‘Never, ever assume that a downed powerline is anything other than live and dangerous.’

Meanwhile, in Victoria, scores of homes were also still impacted by power outages in the state’s central and northern regions, including around Sherparton and Echua.

Residents in the state capital shared video online on Tuesday of what they claimed were long streaks of lightning lighting up the sky during a flight over the city.

Play in the Boxing Day cricket Test, where Australia is taking on Pakistan, stopped for several hours from after 2pm when rain started over the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

However, the teams were able to return to the field in the late afternoon. 

Further north, residents in regional NSW braced amid renewed threats of flooding, including on the south coast which witnessed ‘intense’ rainfall on Monday.

The BOM recorded more than 89mm of rain falling in just one hour in the Eurobodalla region, an area popular with tourists during summer.

Advice-level flood warnings were also in place on Tuesday for swathes of the state’s south, including around the Snowy Mountains and Tumut regions.

In the NSW Hunter region, hailstones the size of tennis balls pounded the small town of Rutherford, north of Newcastle.

Michelle Hadley, posting to social media, showed off a photo of her hands cupping large hailstones with the caption ‘Rutherford’.

Responding to Ms Hadley’s post, Caz Hooper posted a photo of a bucketful of hailstones and said her car had been wrecked by the blast of hail.

‘So much massive hail in Rutherford,’ she said.

‘I imagine the insurance companies will be very busy this week! My car is wrecked!’

Brooke Lewins, meanwhile, said she had seen ‘tennis ball-sized’ hail in the town.

Videos posted to the Maitland Community Noticeboard page show a wild hailstone storm smashing the area, with stones and sharp winds tearing into cars and streets.

Tuesday saw conditions ease across much of the country with BOM cancelling multiple weather warnings in NSW and South Australia.

Sydney was forecast to receive only showers, with the possibility of a storm. Similar forecasts were made for Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra.

In the country’s west, advice-level warnings were still in place for a number of bushfires across the southwest. 

In the state’s north, a heatwave warning was still in place.