I live in the North of Armidale, and thought I would share some experiences. I was up a ladder cleaning leaves out of the gutters, when the storm came over the horizon from the south. I could hear a roar coming from town, to the south. We got very heavy rain, and the odd small hailstone, with fairly strong wind. The hail was very localised. We were only a couple of hundred metres away from the worst affected areas. After the storm, I needed to pass through the east side of town. All the open fields were completely white. If it had happened a couple of days later, it would have been a white Christmas. In some places, like at TAS, the golf-ball sized hail was about half a metre deep against the walls of buildings and I trudged through ice which came up to well above my ankles. About half the leaves off every tree were stripped, leaving a smell of Autumn for days. After the storm, there was an eerie low fog that hung over the creeklands. The article in the newspaper said it was because of the ice, which lay around for days, cooled the air. It was cold, quiet, and all the cars where slowly driving through the tracks made in the ice with their lights on like a European winter's evening. Windows were brocken and holes were made cladding on the eastern side of many houses on the eastern side of town. Hundreds of insurance claims have been lodged.
Last Edit: 29 December 2006, 03:03:51 PM by orage
Northern NSW Storms 20 - 21 Dec 2006 - including the Armidale Hailstorm