Another wave of thunderstorms has knocked out power to thousands more homes across South Australia — and even forced the brief evacuation of the weather bureau’s Adelaide office.

Key points:

  • Wild weather has battered Adelaide and parts of SA throughout the day
  • The number of homes and businesses without power has exceeded 30,000
  • SA Power Networks says crews will be working through the night

Lightning, giant hail and heavy rains have lashed parts of South Australia for most of the day, causing flash flooding and widespread damage.

Thousands of homes and businesses were left without power — but that number surged to more than 30,000 after another burst of gale-force winds and storm activity hit Adelaide about 7pm.

“That incredible storm that came through the city here — that was really amazing and I’m not surprised we’re getting a lot of calls from people,” SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts said.

Minutes later, the number of blacked out properties hit 30,000.

Mr Roberts said that outages were being reported not only across Adelaide’s CBD, but from Eyre Peninsula in the west to the Riverland in the east, where about 8,000 properties were currently in the dark.

He said crews would be working throughout the night.

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Hailstones up to 5 centimetres wide have pelted Adelaide’s suburbs.

Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior forecaster Brett Gage told ABC Radio Adelaide that it had “been a madhouse today”.

“In Adelaide we had a westerly change right about 6pm on the coast. There were strong westerly winds and then about an hour later they increased to gale force.”

Mr Gage said a low pressure system had resulted in “pretty much horizontal rain” in Adelaide’s CBD, forcing the brief evacuation of the BOM’s main SA office on King William Street.

“I had to evacuate the building here for 10 minutes because the rain got into some system up on top of the building,” he said.

“It was blowing that hard, and set off the fire alarms.

“Luckily the [Metropolitan Fire Service] were very prompt.”

A severe weather warning for damaging winds remains current for much of the state, however, Mr Gage said winds would “ease rapidly” tomorrow morning.

Lightning at Modbury in Adelaide’s north-eastern suburbs during a thunderstorm.(Supplied: Jessica Murdoch)

The highest recorded wind speed so far today was 124 kilometres per hour near Loxton.

State Emergency Service (SES) state duty officer Brenton Clark said there had been more than 1,000 requests for assistance today.

He said that included more than 750 around the Salisbury area in Adelaide’s north.

“It’s been a really busy day and it still is ongoing, unfortunately, with this second front coming through,” he said.

“The jobs are requiring a little bit longer, the crews are working on roofs.”

Posted , updated