Wild weather lashes Queensland, with rainstorms bringing down ceilings and hail falling like snow | Australia weather

Severe storms were forecast to continue to lash parts of Queensland on Thursday after intense rainfall caused ceilings to collapse and brought a dashing of tiny hail resembling snow.

Storms began developing on Wednesday morning across parts of Queensland and New South Wales, according to a senior Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist, Miriam Bradbury.

In the afternoon widespread and severe thunderstorms brought large hail, intense rainfall and damaging wind gusts.

Hailstones up to 7cm in diameter were recorded north of Injune, in the Maranoa region, and 6cm around Kogan, in the western downs. In other areas large amounts of small hail fell.

“Even though that hail was maybe not necessarily reaching that two to five centimeter size, there was certainly a lot of it – which really does just show how intense these storms were as they moved through,” Bradbury said.

In Morayfield, between the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, so much hail fell that it resembled snow. Some families were captured having “snowball” fights and making snow angels.

Also in Morayfield, heavy rain broke through the roof of a Woolworths inside the Supa Centre, causing water to stream across the floor, according to footage shared by the Moreton City News.

The Red Dragon Martial Arts building nearby also had water pour through the roof after the ceiling collapsed, while students were apparently attending class. The moment was captured on CCTV, with the business writing on social media that no-one was seriously injured.

Widespread rainfall of 30-60mm was recorded from south of Mackay, all the way down to the NSW border into the Northern Rivers region yesterday. The highest rainfall was felt in far southeast Queensland and far northeast NSW, with some places exceeding 120mm of rain.

Rain totaling 166mm was recorded at Mudgeeraba and 155mm at Burleigh Waters, both on the Gold Coast, and 157mm at Tomewin, just across the border into NSW.

Also in NSW, 183mm was recorded at Bray Park near Murwillumbah, 171mm at Kingscliff and 167mm at Tweed Heads. Weatherzone reports that 35.6mm fell at Inverell in just half an hour.

Wednesday’s storms moved offshore overnight but Bradbury said they continued to “fire away with quite a bit of lightning.” Moving into Thursday, a few storms were continuing in the Mackay area and there were showers along the south-east coast, including the Gold Coast and Brisbane.

“We may see a lightning strike or two through the course of this morning but the risk of severe storms has really backed off,” Bradbury said.

“Even as we go into this afternoon, even those showers should hopefully become quite a bit patchier through the evening.”

Showers and storms are forecast to continue across other parts of Queensland, with a severe thunderstorm risk in place for the central highlands and coalfields district further inland.

“So it’s not completely over, unfortunately, but at the very least we should have seen the worst storms for south-east Queensland and north-east NSW, even if they do see some more wet weather this morning,” Bradbury said.