Spring Storm Season Arrives Early: What Brisbane Households Need to Know

Dave Heffernan was halfway through mowing his lawn in Chermside on Sunday afternoon when the sky turned the colour of a bruise. Fifteen minutes later, hail the size of marbles was bouncing off his Hilux and stripping leaves from the mango tree out front. By the time it passed, his gutters were jammed with branches and his neighbour’s trampoline had ended up three doors down.

“We’re not even properly into storm season and it’s already carrying on like January,” he said. “Normally you get a few weeks’ warning. This year it just showed up.”

He’s not wrong. The Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed that this year’s storm activity across South East Queensland kicked off earlier than usual, with the first severe thunderstorm warnings issued for the region in early September rather than the more typical late October start. Warm sea surface temperatures off the Queensland coast and a run of unusually mild winter days are being blamed for pushing the atmosphere into storm mode weeks ahead of schedule.

For Brisbane households, that means the usual run up to Christmas, the one where everyone half remembers to check their roof and clear their gutters before the first big storm hits, has been cut short. A lot of people simply haven’t had the chance to get ready yet.

Why it’s coming early this year

Storm season in Brisbane usually runs from roughly October through to April, driven by the build up of heat and moisture that comes with the shift into the warmer months. This year, though, ocean temperatures off the Queensland coast have sat well above average since late winter, and that extra warmth has fed more energy into the atmosphere earlier than normal.

Add in a run of humid, unstable days through late August and early September, and you get exactly the kind of setup that produces the fast moving, hail bearing storms that hit the northern suburbs last weekend. Forecasters are now saying there’s a good chance of another two or three severe storm days before the end of September, with areas from the Gold Coast hinterland up through Ipswich and into the Moreton Bay region all considered at risk.

None of this means Brisbane is in for a worse season overall. It just means the window to get prepared has shrunk, and a lot of the usual seasonal checklists haven’t caught up yet.

What’s actually at risk

Hail is the headline grabber, and for good reason. Queensland has some of the highest hail damage insurance claims in the country, and Brisbane’s northern and western suburbs, Chermside, Mitchelton, Kenmore and out towards Ipswich, tend to cop the worst of it when a cell tracks through. Cars left in driveways are usually the first casualty, followed by roof tiles, solar panels and anything left out in the yard.

Wind is the other big one. Even without a full blown severe warning, gusts above 90 kilometres an hour aren’t unusual once a storm cell matures, and that’s more than enough to bring down weak branches, tip over patio furniture, or rip loose roofing sheets off an older Queenslander. Powerlines across Brisbane’s leafier suburbs, think New Farm, Ashgrove, Paddington, go down almost every storm season because of overhanging trees, and Energex crews are already bracing for an earlier start to callouts this year.

Then there’s flash flooding. Brisbane’s drainage system handles a normal downpour fine, but when a storm dumps 40 or 50 millimetres in under an hour, which is becoming more common, low lying streets around Rocklea, Oxley and parts of the inner city can go from dry to impassable within minutes.

Getting ahead of it

The good news is that most storm damage in Brisbane is preventable, or at least reducible, with a bit of basic prep. Clearing gutters and downpipes is the first job, since blocked gutters are one of the main reasons houses flood internally during heavy rain even when the storm itself wasn’t that severe. Trimming back branches that hang over the roof or powerlines matters too, especially after a wet winter that’s left a lot of trees heavier and more likely to drop limbs in strong wind.

Moving cars under cover, even just a carport or against a fence line away from trees, cuts down hail damage significantly. And for anyone who hasn’t checked their home and contents insurance in a while, now’s a reasonable time to do it. Insurers in Queensland have been tightening hail exclusions and excess amounts over the past couple of years, and plenty of people don’t find out their policy’s changed until they’re trying to lodge a claim.

Lord Mayor’s office staff have also pointed out that residents can sign up for Brisbane City Council’s severe weather alerts, which send a text or email warning ahead of major storm cells, giving households a bit more lead time than waiting for the news to catch up.

What to watch this week

The Bureau’s short range outlook has another unstable pattern building over the back half of the week, with the greatest risk sitting over the western suburbs and out towards Ipswich on Thursday and Friday afternoon. Storms in Brisbane tend to fire up fastest between 2pm and 6pm, so anyone with outdoor plans, school pickups, trades working on roofs, backyard renovations, should keep half an eye on the radar rather than the forecast from that morning.

For Dave in Chermside, the lesson’s already landed. “I’ve ordered a car cover and I’m getting the gutters done this weekend, storm or no storm,” he said. “Better than cleaning mango leaves out of them again.”

With the season starting early and showing no sign of easing off, that’s probably not bad advice for anyone else in Brisbane either.