Australia Weather News
Wade Death has described a tornado that hit his Central West New South Wales property on Wednesday as being "like something out of a movie".
The Caragabal farmer has spent the day cleaning up around his farm after the twister destroyed a shed he had been standing in moments before the wild weather hit.
"I was in the shed … and 15 minutes later [it was gone]," he said.
Despite this, he said it was "dead quiet" at his home barely 500 metres away.
Mr Death's property was hit by one of several tornadoes that hit the region on Wednesday, flipping farming machinery, injuring livestock and stripping trees in its path.
The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed a tornado occurred at Tubbul near Young about 3:30pm, a second a short time later at Caragabal, and it received unconfirmed reports of a third at Cowra.
Power of a tornado
Mr Death said he did not think it was possible a storm could destroy the shed.
"There's 12 posts … with massive amounts of concrete and it's just either snapped the eye beam off or it's pulled the concrete out of the ground," he said.
He said the storm had left corrugated iron and debris strewn across his 5-kilometre-long property.
"There's corrugated iron up the top of trees," he said.
He said he had been assessing injuries to livestock.
"Whether they were hit by branches, rubble flying through the air, or even picked up and dropped, I [just] don't know," he said.
"They were a little bit lame [earlier], but they seemed fine this morning, which was great."
Third tornado
Eleanor Webster was surprised to witness what she believed was a tornado at Cowra about 2pm on Wednesday.
"I was outside in the garden and we got this sort of small cloud come across," she said.
"It got very windy and the clouds were swirling, and after maybe 30 seconds it sort of moved across the front of the house, and then it started to drop a funnel."
She said she got in her car to try to see where the tornado had travelled to.
"It sort of went off into the paddock, which was a good thing, but [then] it disappeared into a big rain burst."
The SES has urged communities hit by the wild weather to stay away from fallen trees and damaged properties, and to be cautious on roads as the clean-up continues.
ABC