Thread: Hail storm Canberra

Apparently it has smashed 60 greenhouses at the CSIRO and wrecked years of research.

I was in the middle of it, I work in the inner south(Kingston), within about 5 mins the hail was about 20cm deep at the front door of my work. Every cars windscreen had shattered, rear screens gone in most cars, side mirrors and weathershields also gone, bad luck for those with sunroofs, seen plenty of them where they had completely gone, getting through to the interior.

Not long after it had happened, the police were all over the local news and radio saying it is illegal to drive cars with broken windscreens, which is why most cars are getting towed, even today there were still a fair few cars which hadn't moved.

I visited the National Gallery yesterday and noticed there were still cars parked near there with broken windscreens and windows. It seems there are not enough tilt trays available to clear them.

The fern garden at the gallery, like a lot of trees in the area was badly shredded.

On a slightly related subject, I left Canberra in a dust storm, arrived home to find quite a bit of smoke from the Clyde Mountain fire and learned that the Kings Hwy was closed again.

Originally Posted by vnx205

I visited the National Gallery yesterday and noticed there were still cars parked near there with broken windscreens and windows.

The fern garden at the gallery, like a lot of trees in the area was badly shredded.

And yet a friend of mine only lives 3km in a straight line North of there and barely had a hailstone at all and those those that did fall were only a couple of mm in size.

Me about 5km to the SW of the Nat Galley was the same - hail so small you could barely see it - the damage is in a very narrow band but in areas where all the main public open car parks are in Canberra.

Garry

We were staying with my sister-in-law in Downer and noticed on the drive to the gallery how small a strip was affected.

Where the trees were hit, it was astonishing how much leaf litter there was on the lawns and paths.

yesterday my son got a message from his insurer - the car will be assessed on 30th March. He has an undriveable car, and he and the insurer apparently are both certain it will be written off. (Hard to see how it will not - ten year old I30, 350,000km, front and rear screens gone, broken lights, all panels badly damaged, door seals wrecked etc.

A two month delay to assess seems a long time to wait.