SES urges caution as storm surge brings high tides to southwest coast

Despite warnings of damaging winds along Victoria’s southwest coast, SES units were spared the worst of Monday’s storm — but are now closely monitoring dangerously high tides from Warrnambool to Portland.

VICSES South West Region operations manager for unit support Steve McDowell told the Brolga local crews had prepared for damaging storm and wind conditions, but were not called to any incidents. 

“The forecasted gusts were up around the 100 kilometre an hour mark leading up to this event, so all our units were prepared and ready to respond,” he said. 

“Fortunately we didn’t see any of those gusts come to fruition, our Warrnambool unit did have a couple of flooding jobs on [Monday] night through some heavy rainfall, but from the storm side of things, we haven’t seen a great deal of activity.”

Instead, crews along the coast from Warrnambool to Portland have turned their attention to the ocean.

“We’ve been out today [Tuesday] monitoring the high tides right across the coast from Warrnambool to Portland, we had seen very high tides just after midday,” McDowell said.

Moyne River rising

The Port Fairy SES unit received a call earlier today for sandbagging at a premises along the Moyne River where the tide had pushed back up the river.

“We have seen some very high tides today, they’re likely to continue tomorrow [Wednesday], so we’ll see a high tide around lunchtime, and we’ll also see it again on Thursday,” McDowell told the Brolga.

“We are monitoring those very closely to check on any inundations from those storm surges over the next couple of days.”

If walkways and jetties along the coast are inundated, McDowell said the SES has warned locals to “steer clear from them and stay away for your own safety”.

“The water doesn’t appear to be moving quite quickly, but there is a bit of power behind the water as the surge moves in and out.” 

No more wind, tides to continue

Angus Hines from the Bureau of Meteorology told the Brolga the strong winds and high tides were part of a multi-day severe weather event.

Hines said the region was likely “past the peak” of the wind speeds, but more high tides were on their way.

“We did see some pretty strong gusts around much of Western Victoria during Monday and it's continued to be quite windy into Tuesday, but I think it's probably fair to say that we're past the peak of the wind speeds now,” he said. 

“Between [Tuesday] and [Wednesday] we’re really anticipating those wind speeds to start to taper off and those wind speeds to come down a little bit.”

The strongest gusts from the coast came from Cape Nelson Lighthouse at 85km/h and 67km/h at Portland. 

Hines noted Port Fairy and Portland copped the worst of the rough ocean conditions yesterday and today.

“That's both in terms of large waves which have been impacting the coast but also abnormally high tides which have been affecting southern parts of the state,” he said. 

A weather warning remains in place for abnormally high tides right across the south coast of Victoria.

“Along that south-facing coast of the state we’ll continue to see very high tides along that high tide mark; we could see tides reach about half a metre above what we call the highest astronomical tide,” he said. “That's the highest tide that would occur just based on the influences of the size of the moon alone.”

Any water that reaches above the highest astronomical tide can lead to areas of flooding and inundation for low-lying car parks, walkways or roads, or even property along beachfront locations.

If you require assistance, call the SES on 132 500 or call Triple 0.

Image credit: Port Fairy SES Unit