• PHOTO: The hail that turned up at Angus Smith’s.
STORM season is underway with a cell passing through the district on Monday night 24 October, staging a spectacular light show between 9 and 11pm and dumping hail on locations from Quambone to Combara.
“The lightning lit up the sky completely, it was like a flashlight show, with lightning occurring every second,” said Kathy Smith, owner of the Quambone General Store.
Kathy’s partner Darius was driving from Coonamble to Quambone when the storm hit, he said that the storm carried buckets of rain reducing visibility as he neared Quambone.
“It was a crazy storm. We had about 45mm in around 20 minutes, with lightning flashing every second,” he said.
Kathy says the wild weather was out of the ordinary.
“It did not come from the normal direction it usually does, but once it hit I couldn’t hear anything,” Kathy said.
“It was a freak storm, that’s for sure. It was like a tornado, it came all at once for about 20 minutes, and once it left there was silence”.
Jim and Jo O’Brien at Glenanaar, located 20km south of Quambone on the Gulargambone Road received 41mm of rain in 30 minutes.
Jim says that the hail lasted around 10 minutes and caused destruction to various wheat crops located at the farm.
“The storm consisted of about 30 minutes of rain, wind, thunder, lightning and hail. It was a storm cell, with hail ranging in size from a pea to a marble shape,” Jim said.
“After the storm hit, trees were scattered around our garden, but luckily there has been no damage to the house.
“However, our 100 acre wheat crop copped majority of the damage, with about 10-15% of it severely damaged from the hail,” he said.
Neighbours Chris & Minn Roach and Jim’s brother Michael O’Brien at ‘Gerwa’ north of Quambone also received a dump of rain along with hail.
Gus Smith’s canola crop on ‘Rosedale Cottage’ on the eastern side of the Castlereagh River 14 kilometres south of Coonamble was the next to be struck.
“The storm lasted for just fifteen or twenty minutes,” Mr Smith said. “It hailed for about ten minutes and we got about 30 millimetres of rain.”
“We had about an 80 to 90% crop loss on the canola which was perfect timing because the canola crop was ready to harvest,” he said.
“It’s disappointing that I can’t put the header through it but we’re grateful for insurance.”
By MARNIE RYAN