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MELBOURNE, Australia : Freak summer storms lashed eastern Australia overnight, dumping record rains on Melbourne, hitting Brisbane with a towering dust storm and leaving at least two people dead, officials said.
Melbourne received more rain in the 24 hours to Thursday morning than during any day since records began in 1856, leaving the city's rivers and waterways swollen to bursting point.
Victoria state police were searching for a teenage boy reported to have been swept away in a suburban Melbourne creek while two people were killed by falling trees in neighboring New South Wales state.
The storms, caused by an intense low-pressure system, hit a vast area from Queensland state in the north, through New South Wales and Victoria and on to the island state of Tasmania off mainland Australia's southeastern corner.
The front swept in on Wednesday when eastern Australia was experiencing blue skies and sweltering heat normal for the height of the southern summer.
But within hours temperatures plunged to record lows and skies went dark as massive storm clouds dumped rain, hail and even snow across vast areas.
At the height of the storm Wednesday evening, Melbourne registered its coldest February day on record with the mercury dropping to 12.8 degrees Celsius (55 Fahrenheit).
Fallen trees blocked roads and toppled power lines across the region, cutting off electricity supplies to tens of thousands of people, authorities said.
In Melbourne, Australia's second biggest city, rain caused flashfloods that snarled traffic and damaged many homes, with local emergency services reporting more than 2,500 calls for help.
"This is shaping as one of our busiest storm operations ever as the rain and wind continues to lash Melbourne," said emergency services spokesman Peter Cocks. T
"The number of calls has stretched resources to the limit and I ask people to be patient as many volunteers have been on the go all night."
High winds, hail and rain also pummelled Sydney and other parts of New South Wales (NSW), killing a 16-year-old girl early yesterday when a tree fell on to her tent during a school camping trip.
A forest worker was killed early today when he was hit by a falling tree in a rural area of southern NSW, and another man was in critical condition after a tree fell on his car in western Victoria, officials said.
To the north in Queensland, high winds whipped up a massive dust storm that sent a wall of rust-red particles across the large state, cutting visibility to 100 meters (yards) in some areas and forcing the closure of 20 regional airports.
The storms were all associated with a single weather system that swept cold air up from the antarctic and over eastern Australia, said Andrew Haigh with the bureau of meteorology.
"You've got a very strong cold front and a low-pressure system combining. There's very cold air in the upper atmosphere over southern New South Wales and Victoria," he said.
The Australian Conservation Foundation said the freak storms were a harbinger of climate chaos to come due to global warming.
"Freak storms and the climate havoc we are currently experiencing across Australia is a taste of tomorrow's world unless we start to cut greenhouse pollution" blamed for global warming, foundation spokesman John Connor said.
- AFP
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