Tornado flips ute in WA, golf ball-sized hail damages property

A tornado that flipped a ute and golf ball-sized hail have hit one part of Australia in a cold-weather phenomenon.

A tornado has flipped a car in southern Western Australia as large hail stones lashed a nearby town.

Southern WA was pounded by storms on Tuesday, including a tornado about 300km southeast of Perth.

A Frankland River farmer filmed the tornado; the weather system flipped a ute and ripped the cab walls off a tractor.

The farmer told the ABC that he had been watching the storm’s lightning strikes when the tornado funnel started forming.

The tornado lasted about two minutes. Picture: Facebook

The tornado was about a kilometre away from him and lasted about two minutes.

Numerous trees were ripped out of the ground as well.

“I was like, ‘Wow, look at that’. The first thing you do is get your phone out and take some photos and video,” he said.

Several storms brought damaging hail stones across the southern half of WA on Tuesday. Golf ball-sized stones fell at the town of Wagin. Video shows the stones pounding down on Wagin’s homes and streets.

The Bureau of Meteorology says tornadoes are common.

“Australia experiences 30 to 80 tornadoes each year, but it is possible that many more tornadoes occur in remote, unpopulated parts of Australia and therefore go unreported,” a bureau spokesperson told NewsWire.

“During the cool season, there is an average of around five tornadoes reported in Western Australia.”

People caught glimpses of the tornado from across Western Australia’s Great Southern region. Picture: Facebook

The storm brought a brief period of damaging winds. Picture: Facebook

“Tornadoes form when weakly rotating air near the surface is rapidly drawn upwards into a cumulus or cumulonimbus cloud. As the air column rises, it stretches, increasing the speed of rotation,” the spokesperson said.

Looking forward, a thunderstorm is forecast to bring up to 40mm of rain across Perth on Wednesday; much of the southern half of the state will be wet too.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a marine wind warning but no other warnings for WA.

There are frost warnings for areas of South Australia.

Parts of the of the Mid North, Riverland, Murraylands, Upper South East and Lower South East are waking up to frozen conditions on Wednesday.

Parts of northern and northeast Victoria have frosty conditions on Wednesday as well.

Hail thumped the WA town of Wagin on Tuesday. Picture: Facebook

Out well beyond the east coast, seas up to 5m are forecast around Lord Howe Island from Thursday morning.

“These conditions may produce significant beach erosion, particularly about south-facing coasts,” a bureau warning cautions.

“Beach conditions could be dangerous and people should stay well away from the

surf and surf-exposed areas.”

This weather system is causing dangerous conditions on the mainland too. People fishing, swimming or boating on the Hunter, Sydney and Illawarra coasts should be particularly cautious on Wednesday.

Originally published as Tornado flips ute in WA, golf ball-sized hail damages property