Wild weather lashes the Narrabri Shire

Wild weather, rain and even a tornado touched down in the region last Thursday.

“The weather stations in the local area mostly recorded between 20 to 50 millimetres from the event,” said David Brodrick from the Narrabri Shire Weather Station.

“Notably a couple of the weather stations out near Terry Hie Hie recorded 70mm in a 24 hour period.

“The imagery of the tornado at Yarrie Lake is amazing, likewise for the tornado near Bathurst from the same day. While not common, tornadoes obviously can and do occur in our region.”

Mr Brodrick said tornadoes come from supercell thunderstorms.

“Dangerous storms which occur when the atmospheric winds are just right and/or the atmosphere is extremely unstable.

“In a supercell, the inflow spirals upwards in what is called a mesocyclone. A tornado occurs when this rotating wind reaches to the ground,” said Mr Brodrick.

“Sometimes you will see a ‘funnel cloud’ from the base of these storms, which is in effect a tornado which hasn’t reached the ground.

“On the other hand, storm downbursts are not tornadic but can produce extremely strong straight-line winds, like the memorable Narrabri storm of January 20, 2005 which tore roofs off buildings, snapped mature trees and flattened half the garden sheds in town. In fact, it was this storm that prompted us to start building the Narrabri Shire Weather Station Network.”

Crystal Johnston was camping with her family at Yarrie Lake last week and witnessed the tornado touching down at about 5.30pm on Thursday.

“We’ve never experienced anything like it,” Mrs Johnston told The Courier.

“It came down, went back up and then when it came down again the second time it was wider, and when it went back up it was double the size.

“There was debris in the air – branches and sticks.

“Birds were getting caught up in it.”

Mrs Johnston said she was normally terrified of storms, but was so “awestruck” by the tornado that she just “stood there” watching it on the banks of Yarrie Lake.

“We were just watching it thinking ‘what is going on?’.”

Mrs Johnston said before the tornado, she noticed dark clouds approaching and then clouds started “twirling and swirling”, next “a funnel formed”.

“It lasted about 20 minutes.”

Mrs Johnston was on the camping trip with her husband Jason, two children Willow and Octavia as well as extended family.

“Everyone is safe and we feel really lucky it didn’t come over towards us.

“We were watching it and trying to make sure everything was secure and safe.”

Mrs Johnston said Willow celebrated her sixth birthday while they were camping at Yarrie Lake, and it’s certainly an occasion they’ll all remember for years to come.

There have been some reports of damage from hail near Wee Waa, but agricultural consultant Steve Windress said generally the weather and rain was “well-received” by farmers and will help winter crops ahead of harvest.

“It also sets us up for summer planting,” he said.