It is understood at least one person in Esk was taken to hospital in a stable condition after receiving a head injury in the hailstorm, while paramedics were assessing several other people for potential injuries.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people have been left without power after severe storms began moving <\/strong>through the state’s south-east on Saturday.<\/p>\n At Pratten, west of Warwick in the Southern Downs region, 9-centimetre giant hail \u2014 large enough to cause damage to cars and homes \u2014 was reported about 1pm.<\/p>\n Loading…<\/p>\n At MJ’s Cafe in the rural township, about two-and-a-half hours west of Brisbane, opening day turned chaotic when “tennis ball-sized hail” hit.<\/p>\n Owner Richard Manley said the roof was entirely “smashed in” when the storm moved quickly through town.<\/p>\n Mr Manley says he has been left with a huge clean-up, with “almost tennis ball-sized” hail falling. (Supplied: Richard Manley)<\/p>\n “We basically had everyone huddled in our kitchen area because the roof came down in the actual bar area,” he said.<\/p>\n “There was golf ball-sized hail coming into the bar smashing into the counter.”<\/p>\n The giant hail caused damage to windscreens in Pratten. (Supplied: Richard Manley)<\/p>\n Several motorists with smashed windscreens pulled in seeking shelter, he said.<\/p>\n “We had about 30 people who were driving past, their car windows getting smashed and they saw refuge and they just pulled in,” Mr Manley said.<\/p>\n Loading…Thousands without power<\/p>\n In Clifton, near Toowoomba, Julie Blurton had golf ball-sized hailstones smash through the skylight and windows at her cafe about 2pm.<\/p>\n The storm turned the sky grey as it passed near Greenmount, in the Toowoomba region. (Supplied: Emma Tigges)<\/p>\n “There’s crockery that’s all been smashed from the hailstones coming in through the roof,” she said.<\/p>\n Ms Blurton said the storm came in two waves and moved quickly, lasting for 20 minutes and leaving a trail of destruction behind it.<\/p>\n Motorists were forced to pull over near East Greenmount due to poor visibility on Saturday afternoon. (Supplied: Trent Frecklington)<\/p>\n The supercell was visible near Greenmount, south of Toowoomba. (Supplied: Shyne Pointon)<\/p>\n She said many of the trees in the street were stripped bare and parked cars had their windows shattered.<\/p>\n “It’s all a very big mess,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n she said.Loading…<\/p>\n The Bureau of Meteorology said the storm activity near Toowoomba could be categorised as a supercell.<\/p>\n Senior meteorologist Harry Clarke said the weather bureau had kept a close eye on that supercell which had produced “giant hail” in parts of the Darling Downs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lightning seen from The Gap in Brisbane. (Supplied: Ben Slatter)<\/p>\n He said lightning had been reported from Strathpine in the Moreton region all the way to the New South Wales border.<\/p>\n Lightning and rain hit Brisbane about 3pm.<\/p>\n Loading…<\/p>\n More than 6,000 people across south-east Queensland were without power, according to Energex and Ergon.<\/p>\n The Toowoomba, Brisbane and Western Downs areas were among the most heavily impacted.<\/p>\n The storm was still brewing near Munbilla in the Scenic Rim around 1:40pm. (Supplied: Natalie Ward)<\/p>\n In the Scenic Rim, 2-centimetre hailstones were reported at Mount Walker.<\/p>\n Lightning strikes were captured from an apartment balcony in Brisbane on Saturday. (Supplied: Cedric Chu)<\/p>\n The bureau has issued severe thunderstorm warnings for large parts of south-east Queensland, the Darling Downs and the Granite Belt, the Wide Bay and Burnett, as well as parts of central Queensland.<\/p>\n Mr Clarke said thunderstorm activity with lightning was moving up the Queensland coast into Saturday evening after passing through Brisbane and Caboolture.<\/p>\n A pocket of dangerous storm activity between Dalby and Roma also had the potential to push into south-east Queensland throughout the evening.<\/p>\n A wind gust of more than 100 kph was recorded at Dalby Airport at 4:15pm.<\/p>\n “A bit of uncertainty as to how strong they will be,” Mr Clarke said.<\/p>\n “It’s not a case of one and done today.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Storm activity was forecast to move further north late on Saturday and into Sunday, the BOM said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parts of south-east Queensland have been hit by giant hailstones, lightning and rain, with the region on alert…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":347460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,6158,166489,170515,50,43164,11040,170514,161964],"class_list":{"0":"post-347459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-dangerous","10":"tag-destructive-winds","11":"tag-giant-hail","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-severe-thunderstorm-warning","14":"tag-thunderstorm","15":"tag-very-dangerous","16":"tag-wild-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115473270309674860","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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