Wild weather in Queensland has seen two people hospitalised after lightning struck their homes, while some Anzac Day services have been cancelled due to rain.
A spokesperson for the Queensland ambulance service said paramedics had been called early on Friday morning to two incidents north of Brisbane.
“Both patients were reportedly inside when the lightning struck their [houses],” the spokesperson said.
The first incident saw a woman in her 30s taken to Nambour hospital at about 12.43am, suffering neck pain following a lightning strike to a private property on Yandina Bli Bli Road in Yandina, the QAS spokesperson said.
The ambulance service was later called to a second incident at 2.54am.
Paramedics transported a teenager to Caboolture hospital with minor burns after lightning struck a home on Coutts Drive in Burpengary. She was in a stable condition.
Parts of south-east Queensland were inundated with up to 60mm of rain overnight, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Brisbane CBD received 28.4mm, with 34.0 at the airport.
Minor flood warnings were issued for the Mary, Maroochy and upper Brisbane rivers.
Anzac Day services were reportedly cancelled in Beachmere, Broadwater and Deception Bay as a result of the poor weather.
Senior meteorologist Shane Kennedy said enhanced onshore winds and an upper trough coming from inland had driven showers across the coast.
The weather system had already eased on Friday afternoon and was expected to come to an end over the weekend, he said.
“The real peak period was overnight and both of those drivers are weakening now so there’s some showers becoming lighter and patchier,” he said.
after newsletter promotion
“The worst has passed.”
Rainfall totals at Caboolture and the Sunshine Coast ranged between 40 and 100mm, with parts of the Sunshine Coast receiving 102-240mm, he said.
Kennedy said the region was also struck by a few slow-moving thunderstorms overnight, with about 2,500 lightning strikes or so to 9am Friday. The storms were not particularly widespread, he said.
There was also minor flooding in Brisbane and Gympie.
It has been an unusually wet and wild year so far for south-east Queensland, with many parts of the region registering rainfall well above the average for the wet season, he said.
Brisbane was struck by its first cyclone in decades in March.