South Australia is bracing for a second day of severe weather with heavy rain and destructive winds to lash large parts of the state.
The effort to restore power to the thousands of homes affected by the system is underway, with Premier Jay Wetherill confirming that 90 per cent of homes have had their power switched back on following Wednesday's blackout.
A severe weather warning is in place for large parts of the state, including Adelaide, the mid north, the Eyre Peninsula and the Mount Lofty Ranges.
An intense low pressure system is currently near Kangaroo Island and expected to track east, moving south of Adelaide and towards the Victorian border by mid afternoon.
Mr Weatherill says power is slowly returning to thousands of residents after super cell thunderstorms caused a state-wide blackout on Wednesday.
"Overnight we've managed to restore all but 75,000 of the 900,000 homes to power, but we are not out of the woods yet - there is a very strong system that is approaching our west coast," he told the Nine Network.
Mr Weatherill said about 35,000 of the remaining homes without power are expected to have it restored on Thursday, but it's unclear when thousands of west coast residents will be back on the grid.
"There has been catastrophic damage to our energy infrastructure up in the north of the state so it will take considerable time to restore that," he said.
Triple Zero services are down in some areas according to SA Police. Those who need urgent help but cannot get through are urged to attend their nearest hospital, police or fire station for help.
The winds ripped at least 22 transmission towers from the ground across the mid-north with about 80,000 lightning strikes hitting the state, some damaging generation facilities.
That caused automatic emergency systems to cut power across South Australia with SA Power Networks reporting 200,000 customers were left without electricity.
The Bureau of Meteorology has warned the wild weather still to come could produce wind gusts of up to 140km/h, especially along the west coast of Eyre Peninsula and up to 100mm of rain across the Adelaide Hills, bringing the risk of flooding.
If you need help:
For storm assistance, call 132 500
For life-threatening emergencies, call Triple Zero (000)
