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More than 36,000 homes across south-east Queensland remain without power on Wednesday morning, with up to 80 per cent having remained without power for more than a day.
And the Bureau of Meteorology is predicting Brisbane could be lashed on Wednesday by a severe thunderstorm that could bring more large hail.
Over 100,000 properties were severed from the grid on Monday afternoon after intense storms hit the entire south-east, with the most damage occurring in Brisbane’s north, in the Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast regions.
By Tuesday afternoon about 30,000 homes had power restored, but Energy Queensland said severe storms overnight forced workers to down tools for hours.
An additional 12,000 homes lost power in storms on Tuesday night, although 3500 were restored in the early hours of Wednesday and more than 300 crews were deployed to fix damage by 8am.
Three helicopters were also deployed across the worst-affected regions scouting for fresh damage to power infrastructure.
Hail fell at The Gap during a storm on Monday.Credit: Angus White
“The majority of the remaining south-east Queensland customers are expected to be restored to power by 8pm Wednesday, however some areas of severe damage around Bribie Island and the Sunshine Coast are likely to be without power into Thursday,” an Energy Queensland spokesperson said.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Insurance Council of Australia declared a state of catastrophe for south-east Queensland, with more than 16,000 claims received across more than 140 postcodes since Sunday.
The Bureau of Meteorology forecast a top of 32 degrees for Wednesday, with a high chance of showers, and the chance of a thunderstorm, possibly severe with damaging winds and large hail.
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Senior meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said storms were possible “pretty much anywhere in Queensland” on Wednesday, except for the far north.
“For Queensland, the main risk is going to be rain for those northern and central areas, but we could see some damaging winds and large hail as well across the south-east,” she said.
“For communities which have already seen a few days of very strong, severe storms, this is yet another day of unsettled weather.
“The risk is most likely through this afternoon and evening.”
Bradbury said temperatures were 3 to 10 degrees above average due to a hot air mass moving over the state, which continued to trigger severe to extreme heatwave warnings for much of Queensland, including Brisbane.
“Those heatwave warnings are likely to continue over the next couple of days,” she said.
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