Forecast for more rainfall and thunder

Rockingham shivered through its coldest day of the year last week with hail and heavy rains blanketing parts of the area.

The lowest minimum recorded at the Bureau of Meteorology’s Garden Island station so far this year saw the mercury fall to 7.2C last Thursday.

Temperatures peaked mid-week at 17.1C driven by cloud cover, which increased the relative humidity to 95 per cent.

Hail storms also lashed parts of Perth’s south, caused by a blast of cold unstable Antarctic air.

While the showers were heavy, wind in the area was average, with mostly south-westerlies peaking at 78km/h last Wednesday.

BoM duty forecaster Mervyn Blackwell said last week’s weather event was due to a series of fronts moving through the South West corner.

“This is not unusual for this time of year with most of our rainfall occurring in the winter months,” he said.

“Rainfall associated with frontal activity can often produce falls of greater than 20mm depending on the strength and movement of the system.” Rainbows may have helped brighten the dreary conditions last week, but more wild weather is expected to carry through to the weekend.

“Another series of fronts will move through the South West corner early (this) week with showers and thunderstorms possible,” Mr Blackwell said.

“Falls of 2-8mm for Rockingham today with isolated heavier falls in thunderstorms.

“Weaker frontal activity may bring some shower activity (this) weekend.”

The Rockingham Kwinana State Emergency Services branch received two calls to attend properties with leaking roofs last week.

Manager Mark Wyatt said the mild winds meant there was little damage across the district.

“It was a pretty quiet week for us, considering the amount of rainfall we had,” he said.

“The community has been really helpful and everything ran pretty smoothly, which is the best you could hope for.”