SYDNEY, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Residents in Australia's southeast Queensland (QLD) State are accessing the damage on Friday, after huge rainfall, tennis-ball-sized hailstones and a tornado tore through the region Thursday.
A QLD State Emergency Service spokesperson told Xinhua the agency responded to around 330 calls overnight "mainly for fallen trees, damaged rooftops and flooding inside houses where windows have broken."
Striking in a predominantly rural location around the areas Gympie (170 km north of Brisbane), Kingaroy (225 km northwest of Brisbane) and South Burnett (265 km north of Brisbane), it's expected the "supercell storm system" will cost the region's farming sector millions of dollars.
"A supercell is the most severe kind of storm and when you have rotation in the core of the storm cell, if it eventually touches down and there is enough momentum, when it reaches the ground it becomes a tornado," QLD Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Chris Joseph explained to Xinhua.
With recorded wind gusts of up to 144 km per hour and 72 mm of rainfall in just 50 minutes in some parts, Joseph said there were many instances of "flash flooding."
Although there have been no reports of fatalities, three people travelling in a car were taken to hospital when huge hailstones smashed through their windscreen and pelted them.
Despite a break in the dangerous conditions this morning, Joseph said there might be more bad whether later Wednesday. Enditem
