Griffith emerged blinking into the sunlight after weathering some of the most shocking storms the city has seen in many months.
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Sunny skies and milder weather is on the cards for Griffith heading into the Australia Day weekend, but Rural Fire Service district officer Paul Muir is warning residents not to let their guards down.
Several trees have been struck by lightning, and Mr Muir is urging locals to keep an eye out for smoldering stumps or falling branches.
"We've had a number of lightning strikes on trees, and we were called out to nine incidents on Monday involving trees," Mr Muir said.
"As the weather warms up we'd like people to be vigilant with fire and to call triple-0 if they see anything."
Weatherzone duty meteorologist Graeme Brittain said people can look forward to a sunny Australia Day, with a low pressure trough bringing in warm air throughout the week.
There will be an elevated fire danger on Thursday with strong gusts of wind and highs of 32 degrees, and then on Australia Day the temperature will heat up even further towards tops of 37 degrees.
"We're going to see dry and sunny conditions, with no rainfall on the cards for the Australia Day long weekend," he said.
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Despite the torrential downpour on Sunday, the Bureau of Meteorology recorded only 2.8mm at their Griffith Airport site that day.
Mr Brittain said this was probably due to the nature of the weather system, which was characterised by heavily localised downpours within a short period of time.
Griffith is still recovering from those storms, with many houses having taken extensive water damage due to flooding.
A team of State Emergency Services volunteers just so happened to be doing emergency storm management training when Sunday's downpour struck, and so they were well-prepared to leap into action.
The SES team were already geared up, and so they immediately hit the streets of Griffith to sandbag houses, fix leaking skylights, and put tarp over cracked and collapsed roofs.
They were also called to Griffith City Cinemas, which had a partial ceiling collapse when a Dora the Explorer doll clogged up a gutter, leading to a buildup of rainwater seeping into the building.
Around 700 homes experienced blackouts for hours at a time on Monday but power supply is currently being restored to properties.
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Kenji Sato
Kenji Sato is a handsome journalist at The Daily Advertiser who enjoys writing flattering bios about himself in the third person. He can be contacted by email at kenji.sato@dailyadvertiser.com.au or by mobile on 0448 927 612.
Kenji Sato is a handsome journalist at The Daily Advertiser who enjoys writing flattering bios about himself in the third person. He can be contacted by email at kenji.sato@dailyadvertiser.com.au or by mobile on 0448 927 612.
