A stormy afternoon

Today I headed off to my sister's place on the other side of town to drop something off and when I left here the sky was blue but when I arrived there I noticed that it had become quite dark but didn't worry too much about it as there was only about 60% chance of rain. I had to call into one of our major shopping centres on the way home so popped in there and was about to leave when I heard heavy rain on the roof and next thing the power went out and all the customers were left standing in the dark apart from a few lights which obviously come on in a power outage. All the shops had to close as they couldn't continue to trade and there was nothing for it but to sit it out until the storm passed. While waiting I had a look at the radar on my mobile phone and realised that we were in the middle of a severe storm and that there were warnings out about it by the Bureau of Meteorology.

 Eventually the rain eased so I headed out to the car park and froze as the temperature had dropped dramatically after the storm. I noticed there were a lot of branches on the road home and when I passed by the State Rose Garden it was obvious that there had been some damage done there as a huge branch had fallen on the roof at the entrance to the garden.

 As it was still drizzling I quickly hopped out of the car to take a couple of photos. I don't know how the roses fared as the ground was too wet to go down there to check.

 Also I could see flashing lights just down the road from there so I wasn't sure what was going on and then I realised that a tree had fallen on the very busy road and the police and firies were removing it. I had to find another way home as I couldn't get through.

 Once home the menfolk said we had only lost power for a couple of seconds unlike some areas of town. I couldn't notice any obvious damage to our place so took a walk around the garden just to check. We have an assortment of fungi growing at the moment since the rain started.

 

 Then I saw lots of branches lying on the ground which had broken off from the huge tree next door. Thankfully they didn't land on our solar panels as some were big branches and had obviously been blown by the wind into our yard.

I always wonder if that tree would hit our roof if it ever fell over in a bad storm but hopefully it will just fall short if that ever happens.

I checked my roses and other plants for damage and was quite thrilled that the first hollyhock I have ever grown was still standing. A forum friend gave me the seeds last year and three plants came up but this is the only one that is going to flower this year. I read that it can take up to two years for them to flower. 

We went for a drive later on in the day and there were people out everywhere with chainsaws etc. cleaning up the mess. I think our Council workers will have their hands full tomorrow cleaning up the streets not to mention our parks as I saw a lot of branches down in Queens Park when I drove past. Thankfully no major damage was done as far as I know unlike what has happened in recent storms when large hail has fallen. Apparently the severe storms are occurring early this year for some reason. 

So stay safe and be careful if you start hearing thunder and the chance of rain is only 60% according to the forecast :-)