Sub-synoptic scale features associated with extreme surface gusts during the South Australia Storm of September 2016 – Part I: characteristics of the event

Abstract

Winds are one of the major meteorological contributors to deaths, damage and insured losses in Australia. A ‘freak storm’ hit the state of South Australia on 28 September 2016, causing state-wide blackouts and leaving 1.7 million people without power. In the first part of this two-part study, we analyse this event and find that it was indeed extreme, deepening more explosively than all but two Adelaide-affecting extratropical cyclones over the past 37 years and exhibiting the lowest central pressure. This generated hurricane force winds, with the central South Australia site of Neptune Island recording a gust of over 120kmh−1. We show that this storm potentially contained a sting jet. Such j..