Tornadoes in Australia are more common than you think

Tornado rips roofs from homes in Bunbury

It's been a week since a terrifying tornado tore roofs off homes and flipped cars in the Western Australian city of Bunbury.

The damage left thousands without power and many homeless when the tornado struck last Friday afternoon.

But was this a freak weather incident or are tornadoes common in Australia?

Children ran for cover after a PCYC building was torn apart in Bunbury.

While the country is not as notorious for tornado activity as regions like the United States, meteorologists have told 9news.com.au they are pretty regular events.

"At this time of year, tornadoes are more common in the southern states and that's what we saw in Bunbury," director of meteorology at Weatherzone Duncan Tippins said.

"Tornadoes are more common in the eastern states during summertime."

Meteorologists believe the country experiences 30 to 80 tornadoes each year, with most occurring in areas of flat land.

They usually occur with severe thunderstorms, mostly supercells.

"Majority of the tornadoes would be in unpopulated areas of Australia," Tippins said.

"To have an impact in populated areas is rarer, but most of them do get missed and not observed.

"Certainly the larger ones are rarer, only a handful (per year) would be of the strength (of) what we saw at Bunbury."

Tornadoes are classified much like other natural disasters - according to their impact.

Meteorologists use the Enhanced Fujita scale, which is ranked from 0 (minor damage) to 5 (incredible damage).

"The measure used for tornado strength is called the enhanced Fujita scale and that allows you to assess the strength of a tornado based on the damage that's been observed," Tippins said.

This tornado ripped through the region near Bathurst in 2021.

Australia has encountered large tornadoes

The earliest tornado recorded in Australia can be traced back to 1795 in Sydney, according to the Bureau's national tornado database.

Since then, there have been some big tornadoes recorded.

In 1970, a significant tornado ripped through the town of Bulahdelah, about 100km from Newcastle.

The tornado was listed as producing incredible damage, according to the Bureau's database.

In 1992, the rural town of Bucca in Queensland's Bundaberg region was left in ruins following a category F4 tornado.

There have been smaller events since, with at least 20 people being hospitalised when two tornadoes formed in Victoria's north-east in 2013.

Two years later, Kurnell along Sydney's southern coast, was hit with 213km/h winds and golf ball-sized hail stones following a tornado.

Devastated residents begin clean-up after a tornado in Kurnell in 2015.

Trucks were overturned, trees uprooted following the storm in 2015.

A tree that appears to have been uprooted during the tornado that hit the NSW Central West region in 2021.

Trucks were overturned, trees uprooted and the roof of Bondi Junction's Westfield shopping centre even partially collapsed, according to the reports at the time.

The tornado was ranked F2, being in the mid-range of the scale.

Can you give early warnings for tornadoes?

A Bureau spokesperson said tornadoes can be difficult to detect and provide early warning for, as they are short-lived small-scale systems.

"The Bureau issues severe thunderstorm warnings for damaging and destructive winds, but specific mention of tornadoes within those warnings only occurs when signs consistent with tornadoes occurring are visible on radar or if direct, real-time and verified observations are received," the spokesperson told 9news.com.au.

"The Bureau uses sophisticated satellite and radar imagery to detect and monitor severe thunderstorms, and warnings are frequently updated based on these sources of information.

"Due to their localised nature, tornadoes need to occur sufficiently close to a radar to be detected by radar."

The spokesperson said it's not currently possible to draw any consensus on whether tornadoes are becoming more or less common in Australia.