Two Days of Monster Supercells Leave Trails of Destruction Around Brisbane

 

An extremely unstable weather pattern has taken hold over southeastern Queensland, Australia this week. Intense supercell storms roared across the region around Brisbane each of the past two days. The supercells have brought giant hail and destructive winds to many communities, smashing cars and house roofs. In some cases the same towns have seen damaging hail on both days.

 

 

Sunday’s round of severe storms included a long-lived supercell that travelled over 60 km from near the border of Queensland and New South Wales all the way up to the eastern suburbs of Brisbane. Hail stones of 7-9 cm (2.75 to 3.5 in) fell along this path, peaking just southeast of Brisbane in the towns of Eagleby and Loganholme. Other isolated supercells dropped baseball-size hail in Silver Spur to the west and Glen Innes in northeast NSW.

 

 

A larger cluster of supercells developed on Monday near the Gold Coast and raced up the coast through Brisbane and Hervey Bay. Even more destructive hail was generated with these storms with many reports of stones exceeding 10 cm (4 in) in diameter. The largest stones struck Chandler, just east of Brisbane, measured at 13-14 cm (5-5.5 in) in diameter, not much shy of the national record of 16 cm. Needless to say, the damage to roofs and car windows has been catastrophic, especially in towns like Loganholme that have been struck twice. As the storms moved north, the threat transitioned to high winds. Possible tornadoes struck Wallu and Bribie Island with wind gusts at least 150-180 kph (90-110 mph) flipping cars and knocking down trees and powerlines.