Mt Magnet hailstorm: Gold prospector stunned as WA outback is blanketed in white

“F**k me dead, you wouldn’t believe it.”

Gold prospector Ray Attard could barely believe his eyes as he drove towards Mt Magnet and encountered an extraordinary sight — an outback landscape blanketed in white hail.

“Snow, hail ... yes, that’s ice out there ... 35 degrees,” he says in footage capturing the bizarre weather.

The video, posted on social media, shows Mr Attard driving in the WA outback with long stretches of white hail covering the bitumen and substantial patches scattered across the surrounding red dirt.

WATCH THE VIDEO IN THE PLAYER ABOVE

It is an extraordinary sight in the normally hot and dry Goldfields, where a storm on Tuesday totally transformed parts of the landscape into what looked like a winter wonderland.

The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed that large amounts of small hail blanketed the Mt Magnet region as severe thunderstorms swept through parts of WA.

The storms also dumped 40mm of rain at Mt Magnet Airport in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning, with a staggering 25mm falling in just 30 minutes.

Wind gusts reached 85km/h at Mt Magnet.

The bureau said the storms were triggered by moisture dragged down from the tropics combining with a low-pressure trough over central and northern WA and the Northern Territory.

Further storms are forecast across much of WA and the NT on Wednesday, with potentially severe conditions across northern and inland WA.