Australia Weather News

The clean-up is underway after severe thunderstorms left a trail of damage but little precious rain in parts of South-East Queensland and the Darling Downs.

Small hail fell at Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt and strong winds brought down trees in the Lockyer Valley on Thursday afternoon.

Power has been restored to around 20,000 homes, but 1,000 properties, mostly in the Ipswich area, are still waiting to be reconnected.

The State Emergency Service received 90 calls for assistance, mostly from people in Logan and Ipswich.

Some landholders reported damage, with one property at Millmerran, south-west of Toowoomba losing part of a shed roof and a large cattle feed bin.

Donna Atthow said the storm brought little rain but "cyclonic winds" and caused severe damage to infrastructure to her Millmerran property .

She said a 5 tonne cattle feed bin was blown about a kilometre away in the storm.

BOM forecaster Gabriel Branescu said the downpour was widespread across Brisbane but most places recorded less than 10 millimetres of rain.

"It looked [like] more than what we actually got. It was pretty windy, pretty dark … and some small hail reported in places," he said.

"We got a lot over the southern suburbs and just a little bit over the northern suburbs."

The heaviest falls were at Schmidts Road at Logan, where 27 millimetres was recorded.

Brisbane's CBD received 7mm and Albany Creek recorded 13mm of rain.

"Now we're back to laughing in the sun," Mr Branescu said.

Energex spokesman Danny Donald said there had been thousands of lightning strikes.

"We've already been whacked by about 55,000 lightning strikes … so it's doing its job, but hey, it's south-east Queensland — this is what happens," Mr Donald said.

"We've been aware of them for a couple of days, so we've had extra crews on standby ready to go."

ABC