39c to mini cyclone in 30 seconds!

Yesterday around 3pm we had a crazy storm cell hit us, the temp was about 39c, and I had been watching the radar online at Bureau of Meterology, and could see a small storm cell coming our way, it didn't look sinister, just heavy rain.

Boy was I wrong, out of nowhere hail came pelting down, I left the office to bring my car under cover, and the rain was coming through the barn horizontally and you couldn't see more than a few meters in front, it was like a blizzard of rain & hail.  I nearly got bowled over running to my car.

With the car safe inside I ran out to check on the foals (we had just turned out the 6 newly weaned foals into a big paddock), but I couldn't see more than a meter into the paddock. Then lighting started landing close by, so I went back to the barn.

After the lightning had stopped, we started doing a livestock and fence check.

Luckily none of us and no horses were injured.

We had about 12 gum trees partially or fully down, most had come down safely, 2 had come down over fences, but the paddocks were empty so not too bad.

The biggest casualty was the poor front gate!

Farm gate after a gum landed on it - we had already removed 3 big branches

The power was out until about 9pm, and we spent the rest of the daylight hours chopping up fallen trees, pulling down loose branches, and building a massive future bonfire in the dam paddock!  Today will be more of the same.

I realise our storm is nothing in the scheme of Cyclone Yasi, the floods, Christchurch disaster, etc, but it was still enough to rattle our cages.

Till next time,