Have you heard about Melbourne’s weekend of wild weather? Saturday I was quietly minding my own business, working away on my Mac, when suddenly the sky went black! It was only around 3-4pm in the afternoon! Too early yet for darkness to fall. Our first warning of what was to fall from the sky was a light pattering of hail, building rapidly to a herd of elephants stampeding on our roof! My first concern when I realised that these were giant hailstones was that the children did not go outside. Then I advised them to stay away from the windows. And a good thing too – a neighbouring suburb, Rowville, had lots of window damage.
My first view of the amazing hailstones was out our front window. I immediately went for my camera, photographing some of the hailstones – easily as big as golf balls. In Ferntree Gully, the suburb next to us, some hailstones were considered to be as large as tennis balls.
Hail Stones on Front Veranda
In this image you can see some of the hailstones.
Although we were lucky and only received minor damage, I was very disappointed that my undercover clothesline is no longer undercover. The laserlite that was covering the verandah on that side was totally destroyed…
Damage to Verandah Roof
The laser lite on this side of the house is obviously older, and therefore has been exposed to the sun for longer, making it very brittle. Despite this, there were no holes in the roof prior to Saturday’s storm.
Sunday morning I went up to the bungalow and took the photo below, showing you the extent of the damage to the verandah roof.
Hail Damage from the bungalow
We knew that we had a cracked window in our bedroom, but as it was not a severe crack, we were not going to worry about it. We also checked the cars carefully this morning, as we do not have a garage or a carport, and there have been many reports of extensive damage to unprotected cars, especially in our area. Fortunately, there are a few small dints in the roof of both of the cars, but no other damage. At this point we had thought we had gotten off very light, but this morning, as Paul opened the blinds facing the bungalow, he noticed what I had not when I had checked the bungalow on Saturday after the storm – one of the windows to the bungalow was broken.
Broken window to the bungalow.
This window opens into my sewing room. That’s right, my newly painted sewing room! Fortunately, I still have not painted this wall of the sewing room, and when I checked around the window for water damage, there was none! So we are looking to have both windows replaced now. And I will finish painting this room once the window is repaired!
So we got of fairly lightly, but my heart goes out to those who did not. One of the things that saved us, I think, is that we have a Colourbond roof, and many of those with water damage and storm damage in their houses had tiled roofs.
What a weekend!
