THE clean-up from this week’s wild storms and gusty weather continues as temperatures subside.
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A summer storm brought strong winds and patchy rain to parts of the North West on Monday afternoon, sending residents scrambling.
A shed was decimated in Barraba, leaving tin strewn in a paddock, while a roof was blown off another in Uralla.
Matt Whitworth from Namoi SES said crews had nine immediate calls for help while four other jobs flowed in yesterday.
“We’ve had a couple of fallen trees over roads, a couple in Gunnedah and Tamworth, Liverpool Plains on the highway blocking traffic at Quirindi, but there hasn’t been any major damage to structures or infrastructure reported,” he said.
“There was a roof blown off a shed in Uralla and a tree down at Walcha on someone’s garage roof.”
The likelihood of more storms this week has prompted the SES to urge residents to report damage as soon as possible to ensure crews can attend before stand down after emergencies.
On the fire front, the RFS said 39,799 lightning strikes were recorded across NSW in the 24 hours to 2pm on Tuesday.
Superintendent Allyn Purkiss said crews would be deployed into today to continue the mop up.
“We had 14 separate fires on Monday alone in a space of a few hours as a result of lightning strikes,” he said.
Two fires, one at Banalasta and Moonbi Trig, were the focus for volunteers as they worked to control it yesterday, but access was made more difficult by the remote, unforgiving territory.
“Crews have done a very, very good job, working extremely hard [on Monday night] to get around both these fires,” Superintendent Purkiss said.
“The winds the way they were, it was quite difficult conditions and it made fire behaviour pretty unpredictable, so the crews did an excellent job to round it up as quickly as they did.”
The patchy rainfall did not hit the fireground but made an impact at Mullaley, which saw 15mm on Monday night, while Tamworth airport saw 10mm in the rain gauge.
Nundle picked up 5mm while Narrabri recorded 7 and Armidale 4.
There is a medium chance of showers and thunderstorms for the North West Slopes and Plains today with a low to moderate fire danger.
