It gives me great pleasure to announce that tornadic activity has been observed in Australia, more precisely at a small community called Dunoon (near Lismore) in New South Wales.
The tornado (possibly an EF-1) was filmed by various residents in the area and storm-chased by Jimmy Deguara of australiasevereweather.com.
From the Bureau of Meterology Australia:
Photo by Annamaria Hull
Photo by Jimmy Deguara
Where: Dunoon, NSW (map)
When: 26th October, 2007 in the afternoon (4pm)
Duration: approx. 15-25 mins
Path of the tornado:
By Jimmy Deguara and Michael Bath (ASW.com)
Damage:
- blew out the walls of St. Matthew's Anglican Church
- destroyed two classrooms at a primary school
- tore the roofs off about 20 residences
- uprooted a tree and dragged it about 30m
- a piece of flying debris hit a power sub-station that exploded (see below for footage of this)
- 3000 homes were without power
Fujita Scale Rating: According to Jimmy Deguara, possibly an EF-1
Cost: "...millions of dollars in damage"
Videos:
Footage © Jimmy Deguara
Recorded by a family on the north coast (also view second part here)
Sources:
Australia Severe Weather Forum (pages 3, 4 and 5 of interest)
Sydney Morning Herald
Lismore Northern Star
YouTube
And still, the media continues to call it a "mini-tornado". I wanted to throttle the woman on The Today Show who said so. A weak tornado, yes, mini-tornado, ABSOLUTELY NOT.
:D
