A bare nine months after Boxing Day storms ripped through her Hivesville property, Sarah Sullivan watched one of this week’s supercells threaten to tear their belongings apart again.
A teacher at the local school, Sarah had been sent home along with students in advance of the storm hitting and was watching it build apprehensively.
When she saw what looked like a spout forming she went to get her camera to record it.
What followed was the most unusual cloud movement she’s seen.
“It had just come over the back mountain – it had a U shape and started to spiral,” she said.
“I started photographing it on my right hand side and finished turned right about to the left.
“The lower clouds were being sucked around and the heavier rain clouds were on top of that.”
The whole event lasted 15 minutes, leaving them in sunshine and without rain or substantial damage, despite a massive force of wind.
Sarah said the tornado warning was very accurate.
“We’d been hit by the Boxing Day storm and were very worried about it all happening again,” she said.
“Our stables and sheds were ripped apart then – they said that was a little twister too.
“I’ve never been so happy to miss a storm.”
After blowing past the Sullivans and others, the cell swooped towards Tiaro and Maryborough.