This post can be regarded as some kind of “closing the barn door after the horse has bolted” sort of thing. For about a month or so now, as you drive around these parts, you will occasionally come across a poster or one of those electronic signs.
In the past these signs and posters have said things like “Blood stocks low, give blood now.” These days so they are saying…
Storm season approaching, tidy up your yard
The reason people are asked to tidy up their yards is so that we don’t get the kind of scene you might have witnessed in the Wizard of Oz. You know, houses flying through the sky along with grannies in chairs knitting pullovers with mooing cows floating by.
This weekend, over in a suburb of Brisbane known as Middle Park, a trampoline, probably 12 foot or 14 foot by what I saw, spent some of its Saturday morning flying through the air.
Saturday morning was the first of three major storm cells to pass through this city over the weekend, I originally heard Brisbane suffered around 4,000 lightning strikes, this news report says it was more like 13,000…
As the news reader suggested, more storms were on their way and we do get alerts from the Queensland government, here’s the advice they give…
Emergency Management Queensland advises that people should:
- Move your car under cover or away from trees.
- Secure loose outdoor items.
- Seek shelter, preferably indoors and never under trees.
- Avoid using the telephone during a thunderstorm.
- Beware of fallen trees and powerlines.
- For emergency assistance contact the SES on 132 500.
Unfortunately, sometimes these storms come through so fast these alerts can also be after the horse has bolted.
So Saturday night we were belted again, but Mother Nature saved the most ferocious but shortest storm for Sunday evening, around 6 o’clock. This one…
Source: Bureau of Meteorology
Mrs Bobinoz and Elizabeth were down the dog park walking Hippy. Mrs B phoned me to say the sky had turned green and that one of the other dog walkers had told her that it means hailstones were on their way. We finished the call and I continued painting the bench I was painting in the garage, but within 30 seconds or so I noticed the palm trees starting to sway and the skies turn dark.
The storm then came through so fast that I couldn’t even grab my camera quickly enough to record it and Mrs Bobinoz, Elizabeth and Hippy had to “run for their lives” to the car as the predicted hailstones stormed from the south at about 90 kilometres per hour.
Sunday night is the night we put out our wheelie bins; as this storm roared through each and every one was bowled over like a skittle.
You’ll be pleased to know my girls made it to the car and managed to get home safe and sound; they described their experience though as scary and talked of hailstones the size of tennis balls.
Apparently they didn’t have time to take any photographs either, prompting me to suggest they were exaggerating about these ‘tennis ball’ sized hailstones.
The two small dents on the bonnet of the car suggested they weren’t though, and this video from a suburb called Mt Ommaney, just 5 kilometres away as the crow flies, shows exactly what they were running away from.
Scary indeed…
Best I go tidy up my yard.
