Violent hailstorm - Gorilla hail - north of Sydney Australia

[Jimmy Deguara]

Yes - definitely another severe storm in that region - I keep getting amazed at the extreme storms we have been experiencing this season. This region has had now two violent hailstorms with Gorilla hail - one on the 24th October last year and this one on the 20th February 2005. My car as you have observed sustained severe damage including deep dents, a broken windshield, smashed front light and the mirror went missing.

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/stor...s/200502-02.htm

Some stills:















Our aim was to remain ahead but unfortunately the road was not kind and the storm overtook us. The interesting thing was that the hail decreased suddenly followed by a barrage of violent very large hail.

It was a spectacular HP supercell and hail held aloft was picked up on radar to 10km and severe limits to 12km.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

 

[Bill Hark]

That's awesome, Jim Leonard-sized hail. Thanks for the report and images. You should post a short video clip if you have one.

Bill Hark

 

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi Bill,

You twisted my arm

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/vide...05/0220jd01.wmv

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

 

[Brad Emel]

Right click on the link and click "Save As". That will allow you to download and watch the video.

That was some huge hail! I hope I never run into anything like that.

 

[MClarkson]

thats sweet

nice footage

 

[Craig Maire II]

Large hail

Awsome hail pictures Jimmy! Glad you were not injured!

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Great pictures...sorry about the car though.

 

[Jimmy Deguara]

AdrianElizabethParker,

Yes the damage was to my vehicle. I guess it is part of the risk in chasing.

Powerful HP supercell.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

 

[Michael Thompson]

Ack! That movie link is corrupted or something because i saw nothing but a series of letters and numbers and it slowed my browser waay down. Are you sure the link is correct?

I could be wrong, but I bet you are using Netscape or Firefox. These browsers do everything correctly, so if WMV has not been set as a correct MIME type in the META data they will show as text.

IE on the otherhand like many Microsoft products makes its own rules, see WMV and runs it as video.

I am not an expert and could be wrong, but I have the exact same problem with my preferred browser Firefox and searching google comes up with this answer.

 

[Chris C Sanner]

Sorry to hear about the car, but that was some great video!

 

[Dave Gallaher]

True tree-eating hail--thanks for posting the video. Good luck with the car insurance.

Dave Gallaher

 

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

Yes very large hail. What are people's estimates of the hail size?

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

 

[Dave Gallaher]

It's hard to guess on the video captures without something to help with the scale, but it looks like stuff we would describe as baseball-sized, perhaps a few softball-sized in vernacular terms.

Since there are occasional reports of grapefruit hail, these would not be the largest but this in no way reduces the significance of what you witnessed.

Dave Gallaher
Huntsville, AL

 

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your comments.

Yes - the hail measured shown in the pictures are definitely not the largest hailstones - it was a little too risky to get out of the car during the barage to grab one of the larger hailstones. I do alert to a few of the hailstones on the embankment and on the road with this video zoomed out.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

 

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

I had another clip in my computer from before and I forgot to include it at the time. This is a short clip of when the windshield busted - ooops!

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/vide...05/0220jd02.wmv

Kind regards,

Jimmy Deguara