It does not sound like much, but 23 kilometres was all that separated the suburbs that got soaked, and those that escaped relatively unscathed during Sydney’s savage storms.
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) rainfall data has revealed yesterday’s deluge dumped far more than a month’s worth of rain on some parts of the Harbour City in a matter of hours.
The figures reveal Sydney’s lower north shore was in the firing line, where Mosman was drenched with 130 millimetres of rain between 6am and midday at the height of the downpour.
Observatory Hill, near The Rocks, recorded 111mm in the same period, while Chatswood was next wettest with 107 millimetres.
The gauge at Sans Souci Public School in the Sydney’s south — 23km from Mosman’s weather station, as the crow flies — recorded one of the lowest totals, receiving about 13mm.
Canterbury, which is just 17km from Mosman, received 20mm.
The data was taken from automatic weather stations which provide hourly, three-hour and 24-hour rainfall figures.
‘Mini cyclone’ in Chatswood
Sydney’s south was spared the worst of the weather with locales like Box Hill (25mm) recording among the lowest totals.
However, those falls were still more than a quarter of the Harbour City’s November average of 83.6mm.
Not only was Chatswood lashed with far more than a month’s worth of rain, it was also whipped by damaging winds that some described as “mini cyclone”.
One office building there had entire windows sucked out and tossed aside as the winds reached 70 kilometres per hour.
A 14-year-old boy died in a two-car collision at Thornleigh, in the city’s north west, and a New South Wales State Emergency Service (SES) volunteer collapsed and died during the storm.
The SES received more than 2,000 calls for help during the deluge and workers continue to mop up today.
Ausgrid said hundreds of homes and businesses are still without power, while two of Sydney Airport’s runways that were closed yesterday have reopened.
