Sky show: West Coast Sentinel photographer Andrew Brooks captured one of the many lightning strikes at Denial Bay.
WEST Coast residents were treated to a sky show on Wednesday night as a low-pressure system brought a lightning storm through at around 6:30pm.
The front brought peak winds of around 83 kilometres per hour at 6:30pm, and a total rainfall of 11 millimetres at Ceduna.
On the West Coast, the largest wind and rain readings were recorded at Coles Point near Port Lincoln, with winds reaching 94 kilometres an hour and total rainfall of around 90 millimetres.
Shortly after the front came through, winds turned around to the west with the front moving towards the east.
But the main focus of the storm was the abundant lightning, which lit up the sky across the whole West Coast.
Ceduna Weather Station Manager Paul Wilson said a storm at this time of year isn’t unusual, but this storm proved interesting in its own right.
“There was nothing truly unusual about this storm hitting the region at this time of the year, what did prove unusual was the amount of lightning it produced,” he said.
“Most of it was cloud to cloud lightning, lightning which struck between clouds rather than striking downwards to the earth.”
Heavy winds are expected going further into winter as more low-pressure systems move into the area.
Mr Wilson said more storms could be expected later in the year as well.
At the moment we expect at least two more storms to hit the West Coast later in the year, however we don’t know at this stage how big they will be,” he said.
The Ceduna and Streaky Bay SES Units reported no incidents during Wednesday night’s storm.
Several trees around Ceduna were reportedly uprooted, causing minimal property damage.
