Cyclone Narelle live updates: Severe storm crosses WA coast as regional towns face devastating damage

BOM has announced that tropical cyclone Narelle has been downgraded to category 2.

Onslow to Exmouth have been added to the cancelled zone, bringing relief to the area after copping the brunt of Narelle’s thrashing

Cyclone Narelle’s punishment on WA’s regional towns continues to apply pressure on locals.

With one TikTokker updating followers on the damage their bathroom has sustained from the storm, blowing the roof of their house and creating a less-than-ideal skyline.

Huge rainfall in the Perth metropolitan area has forced Saturday’s Ascot race programme off, meaning dramatic consequences for WA’s best three-year-olds.

The main WA racing fixture for the week was sent back to next Wednesday late on Friday afternoon after positive initial track readings that morning had given a prognosis for the meeting to go ahead.

But persistently sour weather dampened expectations and Racing WA made the difficult final conclusion at 4pm to call it off.

Read the full story.

State Emergency Services have received calls from across WA over the past 24 hours.

They’ve fielded 117 calls for assistance in the Perth metro area today alone, all for water ingress as the rain keeps coming.

In the Pilbara, 42 calls have come in since yesterday, with 23 of those from Exmouth alone.

A few of those calls were for partial roof damage, with the remainder for other structural damage, downed trees and water ingress.

And in the Mid West, there have been 16 calls since yesterday with more likely to come.

Most of those calls were sandbag requests, as well as some for roof damage and water ingress.

No injuries have been reported, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services said.

Narelle will likely bring “significant rain and wind” to Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the site in the Murchison where a global consortium is building the SKA-Low radio telescope.

“The on-site teams working on the SKA-Low telescope have spent this week preparing for potential high winds and flooding, safely securing items, machinery, and infrastructure,” a SKA Observatory and CSIRO spokesman said.

“CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope has paused operations for 24 hours so that antennas can remain stowed upright during the event, which helps protect them from wind.

“Above all, the safety of everyone who works from the observatory site remains paramount.”

Once built, the SKA-Low radio telescope will give us an unprecedented view of the universe.

Cyclone Narelle has picked up the pace and is moving down the coast towards Carnarvon.

The latest update from the Bureau of Meteorology shows the category 3 cyclone is moving south-southeast at 33kms/hr, gathering pace up from the 23kms/hr pace from just two hours earlier.

Narelle continues to close in towards Carnarvon as the town has been smashed by the effects of the severe storm.

Exmouth has been “severely impacted” and authorities are warning the danger is not over as monster cyclone Narelle moves south.

Wind gusts of 200km/h were recorded at Learmonth airport, 33km south of town, as the eye of the storm passed, and 200mm of rain has drenched the area in six hours.

Department of Fire and Emergency Services commissioner Darren Klemm said Narelle was the most powerful storm system to hit the town since cyclone Vance in 1999.

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Concerns are mounting for Mid West fruit growers in the grip of cyclone Narelle, with fears the tropical cyclone will completely wipe out Carnarvon’s banana crop.

A category 3 severe tropical cyclone, Narelle formed in the Pacific Ocean before hitting northern Queensland last week, moving over the coast of the Northern Territory and west towards the Indian Ocean, where it is currently battering the coast in the Mid West and Pilbara regions.

Winds are reaching up to 220km/h between North West Cape and Coral Bay, with warnings of flash flooding in the Pilbara, Gascoyne, and Mid West regions.

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Perth’s CBD is feeling the pressure of cyclone Narelle as punters run to escape the wet weather.

Following a long and hot summer, a fleet of umbrellas were out keeping locals dry in the wild conditions.

Power is out at more than 600 properties in Carnarvon as Narelle makes her presence known in the area.

Temperatures have dropped, with the current 24.5C feeling more like 14.2C, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Destructive winds are set to cause some damage, with wind gusts up to 107 km/h by about 3pm.