It seems the weather is going to be so bad in Perth this weekend that Google has “called off” the game between West Coast and Carlton at Optus Stadium on Sunday.
A quick Google typing “AFL” into the search bar on Friday afternoon comes up with details informing that the match, expected to attract a crowd upwards of 50,000, has been “postponed” with a future date to be decided.
While the game is scheduled to go ahead as planned, there are genuine fears about how the surface of the State’s premium stadium will cope with wild thunderstorms and up to 60mm of rain to pound Perth and WA’s south-west on Friday night and well into Saturday.
This is especially the case given the stadium’s surface has already been slippery this winter and — complicating matters further — there is an international rugby union match between the Wallabies and South Africa at the venue on Saturday night.
The Bureau of Meteorology said on Friday that Perth could expect severe weather as a trough and developing cold front closed in.
“In south-west WA showers will increase about the capes into Friday night and then for Perth and up the west coast we will see rain and storms into Saturday,” it said.
“There is the possibility of seeing locally heavy falls. Generally we are expecting on Saturday between 25mm to 50mm about the coastal areas, 5mm to 10mm for inland parts of the Wheatbelt and there is the possibility of damaging winds as well.”
Perth can expect to be drenched from late Friday, throughout Saturday and well into Sunday morning before conditions ease.
By Monday, the mercury starts to climb back to 20C and while rain is forecast for most of the rest of next week, it will be intermittent.
“Into Sunday, we see that cold front in WA continuing to move into the east,” the bureau said.
“There is the possibility of seeing damaging winds … about the WA south coast.”
PERTH FORECAST
Saturday: Showers, cloudy, 12-18
Sunday: Showers, cloudy, 9-18
Monday: Rain, cloudy, 12-20
Tuesday: Cloudy, chance of showers, 12-20
Wednesday: Cloudy, chance of rain, 11-19
Thursday: Partly cloudy, 9-20.