Hail storm... Hits Brisbane... Hits the very spot!

Cyclone... Hits Expo... Hits the very spot.
Cyclone... Hits Expo... Destroys the f#$@ing lot!!
Took 200 years to build and fifteen minutes to destroy...
Cyclone Hits Expo - Choo Dikka Dikka

It's almost twenty years since Brisbane band Choo Dikka Dikka wrote this song in protest over the resumption of low income properties to build Expo 88. Last night it almost felt like it was talking about us.

Before I go any further, please remember that Brisbane is NOT like where a lot of you are from. I don't believe we've ever, even in the coldest winter, had snow. It is, however, a sub-tropical climate and therefore we do get some pretty heavy storms.

Last night the area around where I work was inundated with hail. Not huge, golf ball sized hail, but rather about the size of peas or marbles. It was so intense that we wound up in what looked like a snow storm.




Copyright ABC

Please note that these are by no means the best photos.

Of course, being Queensland, everyone thought they'd go out and treat it like a snowstorm, something most of the people here have probably never seen before in their lives.


Copyright Courier Mail

Copyright ABC

The downside to all this is that our radio and TV studios here were inundated with water. Not the area where I work, but downstairs had to be shut down with all the water flowing in. The TV studios, Master Control and Presentation were shut down as a precaution so the news had to come out of Sydney.

So what did I do? Grabbed a video camera and started shooting. Not all of this is my footage. It's a mix of what I shot on a PD-150 and what was shot by a news cameraman on Betacam SX.

ABC News - WMV Broadband
ABC News - WMV Dial-up
ABC News - Real Broadband
ABC News - Real Dial-up

Brisbane mops up after surprise storm - ABC News

Final word. Yesterday was, otherwise, a picture perfect day. Beautiful, sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. We'd been warned there was a likelihood of "Thundery Showers" in the afternoon, however it seems that just before things turned nasty there was a glitch in the Bureau of Meteorology's radar. No one knew it was coming until it was too late.

It's another picture perfect day outside. Apparantly there's more storms due for tonight. I'm sure there's a lesson in all that, but that's for another time. All I know is that I had study to do last night and when I got home there was no power. I think it's time to use the "hailstorm ate my homework" excuse when I get to class today.