Add Category
In late August, Victoria was hit by severe weather, with wind gusts of 146 kilometres per hour, tens of thousands of properties left without power, and thousands of calls to the SES for help.
But even with that in mind, when Greg Patterson reviewed the CCTV footage from a property he managed in northern Victoria, he was stunned.
Footage from the event showed garage doors being blasted inwards by the force of the wind, tree branches flying through the air like missiles, and a mob of kangaroos fleeing in the face of swirling, destructive winds.
Roller doors on the property at Boorolite "imploded" as the storm hit. (Supplied)
"It's the stuff you sit in a movie theatre and watch, and you see it on the news when the tornadoes hit central US states," Mr Patterson said.
"Whether this is a tornado or a hurricane or whatever, I don't know.
"But we've seen it and the air was moving — you can see it on the video.
"Pretty scary if you were caught outside in that."
CCTV footage captured kangaroos fleeing the area as the storm hit. (Supplied)
Luckily no-one was at the property at the time, he said.
"I'd hate to think what would have happened if someone had have been there."
In the aftermath, Mr Patterson surveyed the property, finding century-old trees "stripped", sheds which looked like someone had been throwing rocks through them and roller doors which had "literally imploded when the storm hit".
The man whose house blew away
A few kilometres away in Piries, near Mansfield, Jed Culican saw the same extreme weather completely destroy his brand new, yet-to-be insured home.
Jed Culican will have to rebuild his home after it was destroyed in the storm. (ABC News: Callum Marshall)
He told the ABC in August that he experienced a "30-second window of just this unbelievable roaring".
"It felt like we were about to get sucked out of there, like a vortex that was coming any minute," he said.
"Tornado is a word that's foreign to us here at the edge of the High Country, to me anyway.
"Mother Nature does what she wants to do — the dreaded lash as we call it.
Jed Culican says wild weather destroyed his home. (ABC Shepparton: Callum Marshall)
"We're very fortunate to be still alive and can rebuild the house."
But was all this damage really caused by a tornado?
'A trail of destruction'
After reviewing the footage, the Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed that a tornado was observed across the area on that day.
CCTV cameras captured wild weather on a property at Boorolite. (Supplied)
"Our thunderstorm team has reviewed the video evidence and we can confirm that a tornado was observed across the Mansfield area on that day in August," said Jonathan How, a forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology.
"We did see a 25-kilometre-long trail of destruction that was between 100 to 400 metres wide across the Victorian High Country on that day."
He said it was "devastating" for people who experienced property damage, but that it was difficult to attribute specific carnage to the tornado without doing a proper storm assessment.
The closest weather station to the area is in Lake Eildon, which recorded a wind gust of 87 kilometres per hour.
But Mr How said based on the footage, the wind speeds were stronger than what was recorded.
How common are tornadoes in Australia?
Mr How said there were generally between 30 to 80 tornadoes reported in Australia each year.
The most common hotspots are around south-east Queensland, eastern and central New South Wales, and north-east Victoria.
"Tornadoes in Australia are fairly difficult to track because a lot of the country is quite sparsely populated and so not all of the tornadoes that actually form are actually observed," he said.
Jonathon How says there's no evidence that tornadoes are becoming more frequent. (ABC News: Matthew Brown )
The tornado observed last month was quite "long-lived," and its 25-kilometre-long trail of destruction was "quite significant", Mr How said.
Generally Australian tornadoes tend to last only a few seconds and aren't as long as those observed in the United States.
But it's hard to say if we'll see more tornadoes in Australia.
Loading"It is difficult to say whether or not tornadoes are becoming more frequent," he said.
"What is likely happening is that with the advancement of technology, cameras and better reporting, it might be that we're better able to record and observe these tornadoes."
"From our point of view, there's not really evidence to say that tornadoes in and of themselves are becoming more frequent."