‘Mini tornado’ sweeps across Brisbane River as Queensland is battered by wild thunderstorms and huge hail

A mini tornado has been filmed tearing through Brisbane amid wild weather that brought severe thunderstorms and giant hail to parts of Queensland.

The gustnado, which is a small whirlwind unlike a tornado, was spotted in the Brisbane River at Kangaroo Point amid dangerous winds and heavy rain on Friday afternoon.

The weather phenomenon was captured by Channel Seven weather presenter Tony Auden.

‘From what I can tell, this is not a full-blown tornado, but rather a ‘gustnado’ which is a more transient feature on the leading edge of the storm. It still looked like it had some strong winds!’ wrote in X.

There are several weather warnings in place for eastern parts of the state, including a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of the Gympie, Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay regions.

Residents are advised to expect damaging winds and hail up to 7cm wide.

“A moist, unstable air mass combined with a southeasterly wind shift moving up the coast is causing severe storms to develop in southeast Queensland,” the Bureau of Meteorology said.

“Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce damaging winds and large hail over the next few hours in parts of the Wide Bay and Burnett districts and the southeast coast.”

The BOM said hail up to 7cm in diameter was detected at Flagstone in Logan shortly after 3pm on Friday.

More to come