...and we very nearly had a tornado!

Hi all,

And folk in Oz would know about the tornado that flattened Pratten. It happened thus: on Wednesday the forecast for the Southern Downs was for clear weather with a cool change coming in overnight. Then a weather forecaster happened to glance at the radar.

'I wonder where that band of storms came from?' he wondered idly before it occurred to him that the storms were about to hit an area not forecast for rain. The met office then hastily, and somewhat late, issued a severe weather warning; but they later changed their minds and cancelled it - before the storm hit!

On the ground we knew that there was severe weather happening, from about 6.45p.m. onwards.A line of storm clouds rumbled to the west, with lightning constantly flickering brightly across the night sky. The dogs said they didn't like the sound of it at all, and it certainly looked and sounded ferocious. It roared steadily across so I went to look up the radar, puzzled by the huge impending storm. The picture was certainly fierce, a line of storms working from west to east. The severe weather warning had appeared on the screen forecasting the probability of heavy rain and hail.


Dogs and I watched it come over until it hit, when the driving rain was too heavily lashing for us to stay out on the verandah. I felt very sorry for the poor goats up in their pen as they hate storms, but I definitely do not have goats in the house. Not only was it intense, but the booms and flashes went on far longer than usual for thunder storms.

Eventually it calmed down and I was able to squelch the dogs up the paddock for their nighttime relief before bed. The goats were wet but philosophical.

Come the morning news, and Pratten and Bony Mountain, both close to here, had been hit with a small tornado. I tried to import a Google map to show you but, sigh, I couldn't do it. Instead here are photo's from the news:

This was a mostly-built dream home that the owner-builder hadn't got around to insuring. There's a moral there!

This is a little girl and her pup Market, who had been tethered to his kennel. Dog and kennel sailed 30m through the air... the dog bit through his tether and fled, taking some time for the owners to find, poor thing.

And this was what a few houses looked like, rather demolished. While it doesn't compare to the US kind of tornado, it still was very unfriendly. Amazingly there was only one casualty, from flying glass, and he was alright after treatment.

We were so lucky here with just heavy rain, plus today we had a few hours without power from damage done to the power supply. That's life - bored with drought one minute, squashed the next!

I hope I haven't made this mailing too heavy, but I hope you enjoy the news report...

Take care of yourselves. everyone -

Fliss