Melbourne may be the city of "four seasons in one day", but Busselton in Western Australia's South West had a crack at the title on Monday when beachgoers were forced to shelter from hail.
Residents and visitors were enjoying the world-famous Busselton foreshore and the mercury was at 35 degrees Celsius, when a thunderstorm rolled through in the afternoon.
With it came hail stones up to 2 centimetres in diameter, which pelted residents for about half an hour.
Stunned locals took to social media to share photos and videos of the downpour, holding large grape-sized stones in their hands.
Busselton's Eloisa Pickerill said she was enjoying the beach just a couple of hours beforehand.
"There were loads of people enjoying the sunshine and swimming in the water," Ms Pickerill said.
"Meanwhile, 20 minutes up the road in Capel there were clear skies and sun. I guess someone's white Christmas wishes were heard."
The Bureau of Meteorology said while it was not unusual to get thunderstorms and hail at this time of the year, it hadn't happened for some time.
"You might have mistaken yourself for accidentally moving to Melbourne with a swift change in the weather like that," duty forecaster Jessica Linguard said.
"Summer thunderstorms are a thing, [but] we haven't seen a good summer thunderstorm in a very long time, especially down south."
No more hail forecast
The thunderstorm developed inland throughout the afternoon, before moving towards the Busselton coastline.
Ms Linguard said hail was the "nature of the beast" when it came to thunderstorms.
"Thunderstorm clouds – cumulonimbus – are really tall, very cold clouds," she said.
"The clouds are made up of water droplets and when they get that high the water turns into ice particles.
"Then it's just a battle of whether or not the updraft within the cloud can sustain the size of hailstones or whether gravity overtakes it."
Ms Linguard said there were no further storms on the horizon in the next week.
