Giant hailstones have fallen north of Mackay in Queensland, damaging vehicles and structures.
The hail storm hit the Bloomsbury and Yalboroo areas on Tuesday afternoon, with locals reporting cricket ball sized stones and larger.
Update: giant hailstones in excess of 16 centimetres have been observed in Yalboroo, north of Mackay in Central Queensland.
— Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) October 19, 2021
“That’s some big ice falling down … I’m gonna have some dints in the car after this” said one man in video he took after being caught in the storm at Yalboroo.
The incident was part of a series of severe weather events hitting Queensland on Tuesday.
“We’ve got thunderstorms extending from Townsville down to Hervey Bay,” said Shane Kennedy.
A warning was issued on Tuesday for thunderstorms bringing large hail and damaging winds to the central Queensland coast, as well as another line of storms with potentially damaging wind gusts heading to Townsville.
⚠️⛈️Severe thunderstorm #warning update: multiple severe thunderstorms being tracked in the east and southeast. Details and updates: https://t.co/FBmpsInT9o pic.twitter.com/YIpznvFn33
— Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland (@BOM_Qld) October 18, 2021
Kennedy said it was part of the same system which brought wild weather to parts of the state’s south on Monday.
“It’s the same unstable air mass sitting around. We’ve got a bit of a weak trough sitting over central and eastern Queensland,” he said.
“Tomorrow, we’ve got a storm area extending from Proserpine down to the New South Wales border, so we could see a return (of storms) to the southeast coast again.” [7 news, ABC.Net.AU]
