Australia Weather News

Alice Springs residents are cleaning up after heavy rain and stormy weather swept through the town.

Strong winds uprooted trees, with branches and entire trunks landing on cars and roads on Monday night.

Streets were temporarily swamped and some suburbs experienced power outages.

Northern Territory Emergency Services (NTES) southern command regional manager Ian Carlton said personnel received about 10 calls for emergency assistance.

"They were mainly for [trees] down onto roads, or within properties, and a couple of building damage jobs where water [went] into the buildings," Mr Carlton said.

He said reports were coming in on Tuesday morning of more significant building damage around town.

Not much warning

Up to 45 millimetres of rain was recorded at Anzac Oval in the centre of Alice Springs from about 4pm Monday.

Winds of up to 80 kilometres per hour were recorded at the airport, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).

A weather warning from BOM went out at about 5:20pm, more than half an hour after the storm hit, due to a fault in the Alice Springs weather radar.

BOM's Sally Cutter said the bureau was relying on satellite imagery to make predictions ahead of the storm, with the radar not expected to be fixed until the end of the week.

"We did have the satellite imagery there, but it doesn't quite give the fine scale from the radar, there's a little bit more of a delay in actually receiving the information," she said.

"We did know that there were storms in the area."

First Alice storm for visitor

Jan Tregenza was in town visiting her son when the storm hit.

Ms Tregenza, who comes to Alice Springs about three times a year, had not seen a storm in the town before.

She said it was exciting.

"[There were] lots of branches down, very big limbs, trees over, washed across the footpaths from curbs and gutters that have filled," Ms Tregenza said.

Mr Carlton said the NTES encouraged people to start preparing for a high-risk weather season.

He said Monday's event highlighted how unpredictable and intense storms could be.

He said the role of emergency services volunteers was vital.

"They're our bread and butter, they support the community, they live in the community," Mr Carlton said.

"[They] support their community and respond to their community in times of need, so we do thank those volunteers and their families."