Mount Magnet Hailstorm: 15,000 Properties Lose Power Across WA
A burst of hail turned the ground white near Mount Magnet as severe storms swept across Western Australia’s interior, leaving about 15,000 homes and businesses
A burst of hail turned the ground white near Mount Magnet as severe storms swept across Western Australia’s interior, leaving about 15,000 homes and businesses without power.
Station caretaker Kez Mac was driving north of the town when hail began hitting her vehicle. “Hail just literally covered the ground, to the point it was as if we were going to have a white Christmas,” she said.
Hail transforms the outback
Mount Magnet, about 560 kilometers northeast of Perth, is among the communities affected by the storm system. Mac described a stark contrast between the region’s red rock and the hail-covered ground.
“Outside it was all white, trees have all been stripped. It was red rock and white ground,” she said.
The storms began affecting the Midwest, Pilbara and Goldfields before spreading across communities thousands of kilometers apart. Hail left parts of the landscape looking as if they had been covered in snow.
Thousands without power
About 15,000 homes and businesses in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Merredin, Kondinin and surrounding communities remained without electricity after a fault on the 600-kilometer feeder line supplying the region.
The Western Australia Bureau of Meteorology said storms were expected to continue across parts of the state over the coming days, bringing further unsettled weather to the interior.
