'Cyclone' blasts coast

WILD weather unleashed winds of 115 km/h, bucketing rain and monster waves off southeast Queensland yesterday.

Rain from the Clayton's cyclone – a deep low with clockwise winds but without the warm air of a tropical cyclone – increased dam levels up by almost 1 per cent.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said southeast councils could now delay Level 3 restrictions until early May.

Four days of rain lifted Wivenhoe, North Pine and Somerset dams – which supply 85 per cent of water for the region – from 32.24 to 33.14 per cent of capacity.

"March is giving us some hope," Cr Newman said.

SEQ Water's operations manager Rob Drury said the dams gained the equivalent of 11,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the best since last May.

Cr Newman said the Gold Coast's Hinze Dam was almost overflowing, showing the need for a regional water grid. "We need to move this water," he said.

But the weather caused problems for thousands of residents.

Trees fell on houses, Gold and Sunshine Coast beaches were closed and suburbs blacked out.

Weather bureau forecaster Gavin Holcombe said the system's clockwise winds and low pressure system branded it as a cyclone, but not a tropical cyclone.

"It's an east coast low, we often get them in autumn and winter," he said. "It is a cyclone but it's not a tropical cyclone – they haven't got the warm air at the centre."

Although winds in the low-pressure system could be very strong – in this case equivalent to a category 2 cyclone – a tropical cyclone would have stronger winds for the size of the system.

Cyclones of this type were not named as they occurred hundreds of times in the southern ocean.

The huge waves generated by the storm swamping bureau predictions which had been less than half the actual wave heights.

The severe weather is set to continue, with gales and thunderstorms expected until a southeasterly change on Wednesday.

Emergency services remained on alert. All available SES crews were working in the hardest hit areas of the Gold Coast.

Counter Disaster and Rescue Service spokeswoman Andrea Dawson said volunteers had been "flat out" as trees crushed houses and cars.

A nursing home at Kirra was evacuated when a tree fell on a unit. No residents were injured.

In Brisbane, residents of a unit block in Wooloowin and a house in Chermside were lucky to escape when trees fell on their properties about 8am.

Traffic accidents kept police busy and one vehicle crashed into a house at St Lucia.

Energex staff were braced for action as blackouts hit about 100,000 homes and businesses from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon. Energex summer operations manager Mike Swanston said crews working around the clock to restore power were hampered by strong winds.

At Mt Tamborine and Bonogin boggy grounds hampered restoration efforts and in Beaudesert trees and branches continued to damage wires.

The ferry between Brisbane and Tangalooma on Moreton Island was cancelled yesterday because of the severe conditions. Stradbroke Ferries cancelled all taxi services and most ferry services.

Beach erosion on the Sunshine Coast was not as severe yesterday as on Saturday, and Noosa Deputy Mayor Frank Purdon said it was hoped the beach would recover in a week.

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