I was camping at Elanda point on lake Cootharaba on Saturday, it's the big lake on the northern reach of the Noosa river. It's a great place for Brisbane kiters looking for a flat water spot, good for teaching as well as it's shallow for miles out.

I cut my first session short as there was a distant storm moving away on the horizon but after landing a big jump I heard 3 loud cracks as I touched down. This was my first time getting a static discharge on landing, I headed for the beach full speed and dropped my kite in a hurry.

Went back 1/2 an hour later and had a good session. When I came in there was no sign of another storm brewing. About an hour later a massive storm came out of nowhere, we were camped in amongst the trees and it got a bit scary as branches and even whole trees started falling down around the tent and my car. We were going to make a run for the car but then the hail started, the size of large grapes.

Eventually the storm calmed and we stopped huddling in the tent and went out for a look. . amazingly my girlfriend and I and the car all emerged unscathed. There were branches everywhere and 10cm of icy water over the ground. A tree had landed on a tent and missed a small boy by about a foot, and a couple of empty tents simply disappeared - one still hadn't been found by midday the next day!

Anyway check the numbers on the side of the graph - I've checked these against BOM, don't seem to be an error.
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Sounds like a Downburst (rapidly descending column of air) from a thunderstorm. Very dangerous and have been a resulting factor in more than one airline jet crashing after take-off or on approach to land. Have a look at the BOM education pages and you can read a pretty good explanation about them there. To be classified as a severe thunderstorms there must be wind gusts of atleast 90 km/hr (http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/nsw/sevwx/windfact.shtml), which sounds like the one that passed over you. The power of nature can be pretty awesome if not terrifying at times.

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Originally posted by NorthSide

Sounds like a Downburst (rapidly descending column of air) from a thunderstorm. Very dangerous and have been a resulting factor in more than one airline jet crashing after take-off or on approach to land.

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In the industry we call them "windshears"

Now if they have percipitation in them the aircrafts weather radar system can pick up the direction of the water particals moving, if they detect they are moving like that you get a "windshear, windshear" voice comming over the speakers ;)

So its good when it rains ;)

I was there as well, couldn't believe the destruction afterwards! A car's roof was caved in by a falling branch, leaves and branches everywhere, not to mention the flood waters...

btw I found that it was gusty near the campground but if you go out more towards the middle of the lake it smoothed out a lot and was much better. I didn't think it was that gusty out in the middle, no different to on the ocean. All the kiters tended to stay right next to the launch area, whereas the windsurfers stayed out where the wind was good. It's waist deep the whole way across the lake so if everything goes pear shaped then it's just a walk back (yes, a muddy long walk but a walk nevertheless).

Sorry Macca but you are WELL off track! What part of the industry are you in??? Surely you are taking the piss! LOL... good stir though