West Australians are no strangers to a bit of bad weather with a tornado hitting Bunbury and a microburst in Perth Hills in the past year alone.
But, according to the experts, the next round is imminent and residents are being urged to get their homes ready.
“We’ve started to see that the high pressure system to the south of the state that has kept a lot of these early season cold fronts at bay is starting to weaken,” Gianni Colangelo from the Bureau of Meteorology said.
Parts of the state are set to get drenched with a month’s worth of rain over the next week, up to 100 millimetres, but forecasters can’t say exactly where will be hardest hit.
With the first cold front of the season due to hit on Monday, WA Day, authorities are urging people to act over the weekend.
“It’s time now to clean up around your home and also around your yard,” Commissioner Craig Waters from the Department of Fire and Emergency Services said.
“To make sure that you’ve trimmed back all the trees that are overhanging your property, also making sure that your gutters are clean, you’re checking the roof to make sure you don’t have any loose tiles.”
Last year, SES volunteers responded to more than 1000 calls for assistance, spending an average of three and a half hours at each property, often for damage that could have been prevented.
“It’s time that we all took time to prepare ourselves, prepare your homes, do what you can to make the job of our State Emergency Service and other volunteers a lot easier,” Emergency Services Minister Paul Papalia said.
The front will extend from the north-west cape to the south-east and is expected to last three days.
