Hail creates snow-like scenes in outback towns of South Australia's far north
It was a sight rarely witnessed in South Australia, especially so far north — much to the amazement of locals and travellers — as temperatures dropped to freezing levels.
Kath Acton lives in the Riverland but has been travelling through the Flinders Ranges for a couple of weeks.
"We were driving from Wilpena to Rawnsley and it started hailing so we pulled up," she said.
"Then the sound on the roof of the car changed and the drops on the windscreen changed and we all realised we were getting snowed on.
"The outside temperature dropped to 3 degrees. It was very cold."
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said the icy white witnessed in the Flinders Ranges and opal mining town of Andamooka was mostly LASH, which stood for large accumulation of small hail.
BOM meteorologist Daniel Sherwin-Simpson said light snowfall was possible, but not confirmed.
"We did expect to see some thunderstorms up around the Flinders Ranges, [but] we probably weren't expecting the accumulation of small hail that we got, the LASH.
"There were also some decent showers up there with some localised flash flooding, so it'll be interesting to see what actually made it into the rain gauge."
Mr Sherwin-Simpson said the bureau had not received the data for Andamooka yet.
"It can take two or three days," he said.
"The highest we saw was Arkaroola, which received 7 millimetres of rain yesterday."
In Andamooka, about 20 minutes north-east of Roxby Downs, the hail arrived just after midday, starting lightly before hammering down.
The BOM received many hail reports from the town, where local Leila Day said it sounded "like rocks" on the tin roofs.
"We weren't really sure it was hail for a minute, then it got thicker and stronger," she said.
"[Now] everyone's out making snow angels."
Matthew Kathegan, an Andamooka opal miner, was one of those rolling in the hail while others nearby were making snowballs.
"I just had to get into it," he said.
"I've seen a little bit of hail in the past before, but nothing that piled up that much and made it look like snow. There was snow on roofs and roads, it was absolutely everywhere."
He said the hail rained down for about an hour and a half, and it gathered on the ground in little balls the size of "Tic Tacs".
But as quickly as the weather event arrived, it was gone — the hail melted and swept out of town — and everything was "back to getting dry again," Mr Kathegan said.
"We were lucky to get out there when we did," he said.
"I've only been to the snow once in my life, but it really did feel like snow."
Snow in the outback is not completely unheard of, with parts of the Flinders Ranges receiving a light snowfall in 2020.
However, the BOM does not expect the snow-like conditions to continue.
"There could be a couple of showers about the far-eastern border of the state, up around Moomba," Mr Sherwin-Simpson said.
"But nothing like the hail we saw yesterday."
According to a University of New South Wales study released earlier this week, the frequency of "giant" hail and the number of hail days in a season could increase substantially for multiple Australian cities as the climate warms.
Giant hail has been shown to cause substantial damage to cities, with some of Australia's most expensive insurance disasters caused by hailstorms.
The BOM issues warnings when hail is over 2 centimetres in size.
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