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WA weather: Moment tornado rips through Beenong, near Lake Grace in South West

Daniela PizziraniNCA NewsWire
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The tornado was captured ripping through parts of Western Australia. Supplied/Kristian Chatfield
Camera IconThe tornado was captured ripping through parts of Western Australia. Supplied/Kristian Chatfield Credit: NCA NewsWire

Images have emerged of a tornado touching down in Western Australia on Sunday, triggering a severe weather warning.

The pictures, which were recorded by a local resident, shows the tornado twisting through the paddocks at Beenong, near Lake Grace and 300km south-east of Perth.

Branches and trees were seen flying more than 50m across the field.

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The Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Joey Rawson told NCA NewsWire that the super thunderstorm cells were “quite a rare event in Australia”.

“They’re not like your classic American tornadoes,” he said.

“But the environment was set up for one (tornado) yesterday.”

The Tornado was captured ripping through parts of Western Australia. Picture: Supplied/Kristian Chatfield
Camera IconThe tornado was captured ripping through parts of Western Australia. Supplied/Kristian Chatfield Credit: NCA NewsWire
The Tornado was captured ripping through parts of Western Australia. Picture: Supplied/Kristian Chatfield
Camera IconThe tornado spun through the paddocks pulling out trees in it’s path. Supplied/Kristian Chatfield Credit: NCA NewsWire

The bureau’s website said tornadoes were more common in Australia than people realised, with “dozens of sightings each year”.

Mr Rawson could not confirm the strength of the tornado but said it was strong enough to activate a severe thunderstorm warning.

“There was a warning out for destructive wind gusts, which were associated with the potential for many tornadoes.” he said.

“Generally, obviously with tornadoes, they are clockwise, so we can‘t give you the strength of that because we don’t have any observations on how strong the winds were.”

Winds in surrounding areas were clocked up to 40km/h.

So far, there have been no serious injuries reported.

Wet weather is expected to continue throughout the region this week.

A severe weather warning remains in place for Perth, which was hit with around 40mm of heavy rainfall on Monday morning, with far worse to come.

The Bureau of Meteorology has alerted residents across much of WA’s South West to the threat of flash flooding, large hailstones and destructive wind gusts of up to 125kmh.

As slippery roads, bucketing rain and wind gusts made driving conditions dangerous for Perth motorists on Monday morning, strong winds were expected to increase later in the day before easing on Tuesday.

Another massive dump of 30 to 40mm of rainfall was also likely overnight, especially around the hills.

The front was expected to be windier than a typical front, bringing the kind of stormy weather only seen in Perth around twice a year.

Originally published as Moment tornado rips through Beenong in WA

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