Bands of thunderstorms lashed a region stretching from central Queensland down to northern NSW on Saturday, drenching Brisbane and the Sunshine and Gold Coasts as they moved east, with the Bureau of Meteorology issuing alerts well into the night.
There were reports of shattered car windows and damaged homes in some areas as the storms brought hailstones up to 9cm wide and gusts up to 100km/h, while thousands of homes were left without power.
Several people were treated after being hit by hailstones, according the media reports.
The bureau warned about one particularly dangerous storm that battered towns with giant hailstones as it made its way northeast from the Southern Downs to the Sunshine Coast.
At MJ's Cafe & Bar in the Southern Downs town of Pratten, owner Richard Manley said hail almost the size of tennis balls came crashing through their skylights.
"Basically all the cars in the car park had their windscreen smashed and a Land Cruiser lost nearly every panel on the car," he told AAP.
Among the highest rainfall was 54mm recorded in half an hour at Barongarook on the Southern Downs, while wind gusts of 104km/h were recorded at Dalby Airport in the neighbouring Darling Downs.
In NSW, parts of the Hunter, mid-north coast, and central tablelands on Saturday recorded hailstones as large as 7cm, while Grafton in the Northern Rivers region received 70mm of rain in half an hour.
Though storms are set to continue into Sunday, they are expected to be contained to a smaller area.
"Many places will not see the same risk," Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Angus Hines said.
"But that doesn't mean there's no risk at all."
There was a chance severe thunderstorms would continue to plague the Sunshine State, but they were expected to affect areas from Brisbane to Bundaberg, Mr Hines said.
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