Microburst

Not world news I realise (and it should not be), but some of you may have heard about a weird storm we had where I live (Sydney's Northern Beaches) known as a microburst.

I was not actually home when it happened, I was driving home with our son and saw an ever increasing amount of debris as we got closer to home, but my wife was.  Actually she was in our car on her way to pick up a friend.  She described it, as many did, as extremely intense and very quick (a few minutes).  She had a few near misses (powerlines coming down behind her and tree branches falling on cars ahead of here) but came through terrified but unscathed.  Sadly, one woman died and two others are in hospital when a tree fell on them as they were rushing for cover having been on the beach.

There was a fair bit of minor property damage, and some significant (rooves off etc) but it's weird there was not more as there was (and still is) a lot of debris about.

The main picture is pretty typical of every street within a few kilometres of where we live - this was taken a few hours after it happened but most streets still look like this, although more mulched now.  We lost power until about 6:30am today (so only about 14 hours) and we found out, as the day progressed, that we are one of the more lucky ones.  The food in the freezer survived (we did not open the door) - lucky again - a week or so of food for my mother-in-law...

We went out walking tonight (with the dog. not sticky-beaking) and there are blocks of houses within a few hundred metres of us that still have no power (about 30 hours later).

Small consolation for many but the sunset last night (extra) was spectacular!