Well, it certainly was a weekend of wild weather in the Port Macquarie, Lake Cathie and Bonny Hills areas, as well as the rest of the mid north coast! Huge seas are continuing to rock the shoreline, but have subsided substantially since their peak, with some reports of 12m waves rolling in! These must have been the exception, however it did seem to be a consistent 3-4m wave size over much of the weekend.
Town beach in Port Macquarie has taken a battering, with a lot of sand washed from the dune that resulted from the river dredging a while back. This dune had lasted surprisingly well in my opinion, however it is big storm events like the one on the weekend that can really do a lot of damage, and move an enormous amount of sand.
Lake Cathie has had a similar result, with the sand dune that resulted from dredging of the lake experiencing some significant washout – leaving a drop of a couple of metres from the top of the dune to the bottom. Just incredible the power of nature!!
Rainbow Beach at Bonny Hills is still seeing some massive waves, as it is perfectly positioned to catch the north easterly swell that has been rolling in. It will be interesting to see how much of the beach is left in the southern corner, although there is a chance that all of the sand washed from along Rainbow Beach and Lighthouse Beach will end up there, as there has been a very strong north to south current along the beach.
Overall, it seems as though we may have got off relatively lightly, and we should consider ourselves somewhat fortunate in this area. To the north, Coffs Harbour recorded falls of over 400mm, and saw considerable damage to the marina as huge waves crashed over the breakwall. To the south, there were many reports of localised flooding, localised rainfalls of over 300mm and wind damage including roofs being torn off.
There will be quite a clean up for the entire east coast over the coming days.
Naturally, if the wild weather will have had an impact on the state of your windows! So if you don’t have the time to sort them out, make sure you give the specialists at Local Gleam window cleaning a call on 0490 264 536, and ask about our outside only “Storm clean up” special! We look forward to helping you get your business or home back looking spic and span!