A massive storm is wreaking havoc on southern coastal parts of Western Australia, including Perth, with thousands of homes without power, trees down and reports of widespread property damage.

Key points:

• The SES has responded to hundreds of call-outs for property damage
• Tens of thousands of properties across WA were without power overnight
• A wind gust of 126kph was recorded at Cape Leeuwin in the South West

State Emergency Services (SES) staff have answered hundreds of calls for help overnight and this morning.

Most were for structural and roof damage with the majority of call-outs in the Perth metropolitan area and Mid West Gascoyne.

Wind gusts of up to 132 kilometres per hour were recorded at Cape Leeuwin, in the state’s south-west, at 4:15am,while Kalgoorlie Airport recorded gusts of up to 94kph.

Severe weather is impacting a thousands of kilometres of WA’s coast.(Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

Western Power is working to restore supplies to about 50,000 properties from the Mid West to the Great Southern districts, including Perth.

Relief won’t come until later today

Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) forecaster Rohan Smith told ABC Radio damaging winds would continue for much of the south of the state throughout Monday.

“Winds have now eased up in the north-west, anywhere south-west of a line Lancelin to Bremer Bay can expect gusts isolated gusts of 130kph this morning,” he said.

“That includes Perth, and it won’t ease until this afternoon into the evening.

“Between Kalbarri and Augusta, people on the coast need to watch out for a dangerous storm tide, which is going to be well above the normal high tide mark, with damaging waves and flooding also expected.

“This will extend further east to Albany during the day.”

A huge swell whipped up by the storm batters Perth’s Cottesloe Beach.(ABC News: Nicolas Perpitch)

A few swimmers braved the stormy water at Cottesloe Beach.(ABC News: Nicolas Perpitch)

Heavy rainfall, power outages across South West

The SES responded to almost 400 requests for assistance across the state from about 8:00am on Sunday and Department of Fire and Emergency Services chief superintendent Danny Mosconi told ABC Radio Perth the majority had come from the Perth metropolitan area. 

“Pretty much the whole metro area and in fact most of the state … we’re starting to see some coming in now from the South West as well, but [it’s been] pretty widespread,” he said.

“A lot of structural damage, roof damage, water inundation trees down over property.”

Trees were down across Perth, including this one in the northern suburb of Greenwood.(Supplied: Night News)

BOM forecaster Noel Pusey said the central Pilbara coast had received 30–40 millimetres of rain, while Learmonth had 59.6mm.

“In the south, they had some pretty reasonable falls of 51–52mm around the South West capes, [and] wind gusts, the strongest one we’ve seen was 132kph at Cape Leeuwin,” he said.

“That low definitely caused a quite a strong pressure gradient through there and pretty decent westerly gales through there, and I expect the tides were higher than normal through the Geographe Bay area but right along the west coast.”

The storm system is impacting the entire south-west of WA.(Supplied: Windy.com)

Hailstorms possible in Perth

Strong winds were expected to continue throughout the south-west corner of the state, BOM spokesman Neil Bennett said.

“The strongest winds now are likely to be down in that south-west corner with a very deep low pressure system … really dominating the pattern down there for the next day,” he said.

The Perth metropolitan area would potentially face wind gusts of up to 80–90kph today, with a small risk of hail, mainly in the city’s south-eastern suburbs.

Part of a roof was hurled onto powerlines in the southern Perth suburb of St James.(ABC News: Jon Sambell)

“Perth itself, the heaviest falls have been up in the Hills — we’ve had falls of 30mm up through Bickley and Perth itself close to 20mm so far,” Mr Bennett said.

The Wheatbelt had seen falls of about 10–15mm, with coastal areas receiving about 20–30mm.

“Margaret River [has had] around 50mm and 60mm up in Exmouth,” Mr Bennett said.

“The Pilbara coastal areas will get the heaviest falls today because there’s still remnants of all the tropical air up there.”

The storm caused widespread damage to cars and buildings across WA, including towns like Manjimup.(Supplied: Manjimup Police)

Western Power spokesman Paul Entwistle told ABC Radio Perth a large pocket of properties in Kalgoorlie had been left in the dark.

“Somehow a shed from around the area has been picked up and thrown into one of our sub-stations in Kalgoorlie,” he said.

“So that’s 15,000 customers currently off the grid due to a shed wrapping itself around infrastructure inside the sub-station, near Piccadilly.

Yesterday, the entire town of Margaret River lost power as the storm moved south.

The unusual weather is the result of a system from ex-Tropical Cyclone Mangga interacting with a cold front.

The official Australian cyclone season ended on April 30 and BOM said while some cyclones were known to form in early May, it was rare to see one so late in the month.