BENDEMEER resembled a winter wonderland straight off the front of a Christmas card yesterday, as a cold front swept through dumping piles of hailstones in its wake.
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From there all the way up to Armidale, and north of Manilla, there were reports of hail with photos showing what looked like snow drifts along the side of the highway and in paddocks.
Tamworth weather enthusiast Simon Fearby, who has a Twitter page devoted to the subject, said he’d had reports of hail from the size of golf balls down, but no reports of any damage.
Mr Fearby said the past few days of high heat combined with the cold front had led to the dumping, and while temperatures dropped from 33 in Tamworth to 26 in the wake of yesterday’s storm, the cool relief won’t last long.
Over the next few days temperatures in the Tamworth area will continue to climb, hitting a forecast 38 at the weekend.
In Narrabri and Moree that’s expected to be 39 to 40, hitting 41 on Monday, while the tablelands will be a milder 32 to 33.
Mr Fearby expects Christmas Day in Tamworth to offer some relief though, predicting up to 5mm of rain and temperatures in the low 30s.
With yesterday’s wild weather came power outages, too, with interruptions in parts of Armidale, Inverell, Manilla, Bingara, Barraba and Warialda.