On a blazing Australian afternoon, with temperatures pushing into the upper 90s F, the sky above Brisbane began to change. Suddenly like an ambush from the clouds, giant hailstones 4 to 5 1/2 in wide came smashing down with explosive force. One woman described how her ceiling collapsed just seconds after she stepped out of the living room to grab her dog. "If I had stayed there, I would have been buried." READ & WATCH- CHAOS in Australia! Queensland Hailstorm Destroys 1,950 Homes and Smashes 6,400 Vehicles- transcript follows:[Weather Chaos channel from USA since June 2025]
"This was a full-scale atmospheric assault, a supercell engineered by nature to unleash maximum destruction"
TRANSCRIPT
[footage]
0.18
On a blazing Australian afternoon, with temperatures pushing into the upper 90s (F), the sky above Brisbane began to change in a way no one could explain. What started as a soft blue haze slowly shifted into a sickly glowing green. The kind of color that makes your stomach tighten. The kind of sky that storm chasers in the US say you never ignore.
The air went still unnervingly still as if the entire city was holding its breath. Then from somewhere above the horizon, a deep rolling boom echoed across the suburbs. Not thunder, something heavier, something sharper. Within minutes, the peaceful afternoon snapped. Winds picked up trees bent under sudden pressure, and the first hailstone, small, cold, harmless, began clicking against rooftops.
But those tiny pellets were just the opening act. The next wave arrived like an ambush from the clouds. Giant hailstones 4 to 5 1/2 in wide, bigger than softballs smashing down with explosive force. They tore through skylights, punched holes through metal roofs, and detonated on driveways like chunks of frozen shrapnel. People screamed, windows burst, homes shook, cars crumpled, and all across southeast Queensland, families realized the same terrifying truth.
This wasn't a storm.
It was an attack, a supercell so violent it turned entire neighborhoods white with ice in minutes.
[footage]
2.04
Hours before the first hailstone smashed into Brisbane, nothing on the ground hinted at the chaos building overhead. It was just another brutally hot November afternoon, the kind where heat radiates off the pavement in waves, and every breath feels thick and heavy. People were running errands, grabbing iced drinks, picking up kids from school, finishing work from home calls.
But while life unfolded normally below, high above the city the atmosphere was assembling one of the most dangerous storm engines Australia has seen in decades. On meteorologists radar screens, a towering supercell was taking shape. A massive rotating storm structure more reminiscent of the Great Plains than coastal Queensland.
The storm's core began tightening into a classic nuclear look, the same signature American forecasters associate with giant hail and tornadic activity. Updraft speeds strengthened dramatically, pulling warm, moisture-rich air thousands of feet upward into freezing layers of the atmosphere. That moisture didn't just freeze, it refrose, repeatedly layering into the kind of ice stones capable of blasting through metal and concrete.
At the same time, tropical moisture from the remnants of ex cyclone FINA surged southward, feeding the developing supercell like fuel being pumped into a rocket. Winds aloft shifted sharply from west to northwest, creating intense wind shear, the exact ingredient needed to spin the storm into a powerful, long-lived rotating monster. All the atmospheric signs pointed to one conclusion. Conditions were now primed for a catastrophic hail event. The type that destroys roofs, slices through cars, floods streets with ice, and shuts down entire cities.
3.52
But down on the ground, nobody knew any of that yet. There were no sirens, no warnings, no hint that the sky was minutes away from turning violent. Brisbane was peaceful right before the atmosphere unleashed a supercell that would rewrite the region's weather history.
[footage] Oh wow. Here it comes.
Just after2 p.m., the shift from calm to chaos happened so fast that most people never had a chance to react. The glowing green sky thickened, darkened, and then dropped like a curtain as the supercell's leading edge slammed into Brisbane's northern suburbs.
The first pops of hail hitting rooftops sounded harmless. Quick taps like someone tossing pebbles at a window. But within seconds, those taps escalated into violent detonations. A deafening barrage of ice began hammering the city as 4 to 5 in hailstones larger than softballs nearly the size of grapefruits plummeted downward with the force of high-speed projectiles.
5.10
Across the suburbs, the impact was immediate and brutal. Metal roofs buckled under the assault, echoing like drum heads struck by sledgehammers. Skylights exploded into clouds of shimmering shards. Car alarms blared uselessly as hail punched golf ball-sized holes straight through hoods and shattered windshields into glittering spiderwebs of broken glass.
Residents who had taken refuge indoors watched in shock as hailstones ripped through ceiling panels or bounced violently across their living room floors. On the streets, visibility collapsed. In a matter of minutes, hail began piling up a foot or more deep, burying yards, sidewalks, and driveways under a white, uneven blanket of ice. Cars slid helplessly across the slushy surface tires, spinning with no traction. Drivers abandoned vehicles midroad as the hail thickened the noise, drowning out everything but the violent pounding of ice against metal.
In Fernie Hills, a homeowner recorded hailstones exploding on her roof with such force that the entire structure vibrated each impact, sending shock waves through the house. Nothing, not cars, not homes, not commercial buildings, had any protection against the monstrous hail core. Car dealerships along major highways saw entire outdoor lots destroyed within minutes. Hundreds of vehicles from compact sedans to full-size pickup trucks ended up dented, shredded, or totaled outright. Even reinforced metal awnings collapsed under the weight and velocity of falling ice.
6.45
This wasn't a thunderstorm. It wasn't even what Americans would call a hail event. This was a full-scale atmospheric assault, a supercell engineered by nature to unleash maximum destruction. And Brisbane was directly in the path of its most violent strike.
[footage]
By the time the heart of the supercell passed over Brisbane around 3 p.m., the city was no longer functioning. It was unraveling. In less than 10 minutes, hail and hurricane force gusts tore down electrical lines across entire districts, plunging more than 142,000 homes into sudden cold darkness. Power grids overloaded and snapped offline one by one, leaving neighborhoods lit only by lightning flashes and the faint glow of emergency exit signs flickering inside flooded buildings.
Traffic lights across miles of major roads went black, simultaneously turning intersections into chaotic battle zones as drivers struggled to navigate through rising ice slush stalled vehicles and sheets of water pouring across the pavement.
Parents trying to reach schools to pick up their children found themselves trapped, stuck between lanes buried in 1 to 2 ft of hail and intersections jammed with cars that could no longer move.
Windshield wipers jammed with ice. Side mirrors ripped off by flying debris. Some drivers abandoned their vehicles altogether as the hail grew too violent to continue driving, sprinting toward gas stations, shops, or any buildings still intact enough to serve as shelter.
Inside, school's teachers acted fast. In Morton Bay and surrounding suburbs, entire classes were ushered into interior hallways far from windows as the storm roared overhead like a freight train. Children huddled on the floor, hands covering their ears as ceiling dust rained down with every thunderous impact on the roof.
9,00
The sound of softball-size hail hitting the metal was so loud that teachers had to shout to hear each other. Some school buildings shook hard enough that staff weren't sure if sections of the roof might fail. On the streets, flash flooding became a second threat layered on top of the hail. Drains clogged instantly with thick ice, forcing water to back up into yards, garages, and small businesses. Side streets turned into shallow rivers. Tree limbs torn roofing panels and piles of ice floated in flood water like debris after a hurricane.
Fire alarms tripped across dozens of stores and office buildings as water seeped into electrical systems. Residents stepping outside their homes were met with scenes that looked surreal. Entire roads buried under icy rubble. Cars, half submerged in slush power poles snapped in half like broken matchsticks. Live electrical wires sparked on wet pavement. Sirens echoed across the city, but emergency crews were already overwhelmed. Hundreds of calls were still waiting in the queue, and many families trapped in cars stuck behind fallen trees or sealed inside homes with shattered windows realized they were going to have to wait.
Brisbane wasn't just hit by a storm.
It was a city experiencing a sudden widespread collapse of its essential systems.
And it would only get worse as night approached. [footage]
10.44
As the supercell continued tearing across southeast Queensland, the city's emergency services were pushed beyond their limits. In just the first couple of hours, dispatch centers logged more than emergency calls. Each one a desperate plea for help. Firefighters, paramedics, and volunteer crews tried to move through streets choked with fallen trees downed power lines and hills of ice. But every block presented a new obstacle. Many responders later admitted that the conditions felt less like a storm response and more like navigating a disaster zone carved out by war.
Inside the homes, the situation was even worse. Torrential rainfall poured through holes punched by 5-in hail, soaking insulation, wiring, furniture, clothing, everything. Ceilings already burdened by the weight of 1 to two feet of hail sitting heavily on roofs began to sag ominously. Families heard cracking above their heads the unmistakable sound of waterlogged plaster about to give way.
And then it did.
Entire ceiling panels crashed down in living rooms and bedrooms, sending icy water debris and chunks of drywall splattering across floors already littered with shattered glass. In suburb after suburb, people fled interior rooms in panic, clutching children, pets, or whatever essential belongings they could grab. Some barricaded themselves inside bathrooms, the safest rooms without windows, while others ran to closets or hallways, listening to the storm hammer their homes like a barrage of sledgehammers.
One woman in Redlands described how her ceiling collapsed just seconds after she stepped out of the living room to grab her dog.If I had stayed there, I would have been buried," she said, still trembling hours later. But the most dramatic rescue unfolded in Logan Lee. A family of five had taken shelter in their hallway when they felt the air pressure shift. Moments later, their entire metal roof peeled off in one massive sheet, ripped away by a 90 m of gust. Hail poured into the house like falling rocks. With no roof left, freezing water crashing down all around them, and debris flying through exposed beams, the family bolted through the back door barefoot. They sprinted across multiple yards, slipping in icy slush while hailstones smashed the ground beside them. Firefighters reached them by cutting through a toppled fence and guiding them under makeshift shields toward a rescue truck idling in deep slush.
13.16
Elsewhere, emergency crews carried elderly residents through rising flood water. Ladders were used to extract families trapped on second floors after stairways or front doors were blocked by fallen trees. Chainsaw teams worked non-stop to clear a path through debris choked streets.Paramedics treated people for cuts, hypothermia, glass injuries, and in some cases shock the psychological kind brought on by watching your home disintegrate around you.
By the time the worst of the storm passed, Brisbane's emergency responders had performed dozens of rescues under some of the most dangerous conditions they've ever faced. And they knew the night ahead would be no easier. Thousands of homes were damaged, hundreds were uninhabitable, and many families still hadn't been reached.
[footage]
14.21
When the supercell finally loosened its grip on Brisbane, the scale of the devastation was almost impossible to understand in a single glance. Entire neighborhoods looked like they had been bombarded by a storm of frozen artillery. Streets were buried under mountains of hail now half-melted into thick slush. Cars sat crumpled and shattered in driveways. Metal roofs lay twisted in yards like scraps torn from a crashed airplane. And with nightfall closing in, the full picture of destruction was only beginning to surface.
The Insurance Council of Australia moved quickly, declaring the event a catastrophe within hours. A classification usually reserved for major cyclones or widespread wildfire disasters. By 7 p.m., more than 18,000 insurance claims had already been filed. A number experts warned could easily surge past $50,000 as residents uncovered the true extent of structural damage, water intrusion, and vehicle loss. Utility crews worked through the dark, but the task was overwhelming. More than 142,000 homes remained without power, and in the hardest hit areas, some electrical lines were so severely damaged that repairs could take days.
Emergency services warned that certain neighborhoods might not be fully restored until the weekend. With power out traffic lights dead and debris covering major roads, the commute home became a dangerous maze of downed trees, submerged vehicles, and frigid standing water filled with sharp debris and live power wires.
16.00
Homeowners scrambled to cover gaping holes in their roofs with tarps as warm indoor lights flickered out one by one, giving way to darkness lit only by flashlights and battery lanterns. Contractors were instantly overwhelmed. Roofing companies and plumbers were booked out for weeks, some even for months, as thousands of residents reported collapsed ceilings, ruptured pipes, destroyed HVAC systems, and entire rooms soaked with dirty storm water. Hardware stores were mobbed with lines stretching into parking lots as people rushed to buy tarps, plywood generators, buckets, rope, and portable fans.
For many families, the cleanup felt endless. Waterlogged carpets squished under every step. Walls sagged. Belongings, toys, books, clothes, electronics lay ruined in icy puddles. Some homes were so structurally compromised that emergency responders declared them unsafe for occupancy.
And just as Queenslanders began the exhausting work of digging out, meteorologists delivered another blow. Temperatures were expected to surge back into the upper 90s degree F, turning piles of melting hail into humid, stagnant mosquito-breeding flood water. Worse still, the atmosphere remained dangerously volatile.
Heat, moisture, and lingering wind shear created the perfect recipe for another severe thunderstorm outbreak within the next two days. The Bureau of Meteorology issued fresh alerts urging exhausted residents to brace themselves because while the first storm had already rewritten the region's weather history, a second round could strike before the city had time to breathe.
17.42
For thousands of families across southeast Queensland, the sound of softball-size hail smashing against their homes was no longer just a terrifying memory. It was a warning that nature wasn't finished with them yet. [footage]
As emergency crews continue battling through the night and families across southeast Queensland and sift through what's left of their homes, one thing is painfully clear. This supercell wasn't just another storm. It was one of the most destructive hail events Australia has seen in decades. Entire neighborhoods buried under ice roofs torn away in seconds. Cars shattered beyond recognition and a city left bruised, shaken, and waiting anxiously for what tomorrow might bring.
And with temperatures rising and forecasters warning of another potential outbreak, the danger isn't over. Not even close. If you value clear, real, no nonsense coverage of extreme weather from around the world, the kind that breaks down the science, your support helps this channel stay alive.
19.16 END OF TRANSCRIPT
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