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A woman holds a huge piece of hail at Narrabri from a super cell storm.
Just weeks before picking, severe storms have wreaked havoc on north-western New South Wales cotton crops.

Large hailstones pounded the Narrabri region and winds close to 100 kilometres an hour ripped at crops and pulled at tiled rooves.

The cotton crop of the Narrabri Community Education Trust farm has suffered extensive damage, but farmer Rob Eveleigh, who helps manage the crop, said other growers around it may have lost everything.

He said the 60 hectares of cotton was being grown as a fundraiser for local schools.

"It's probably in the order of 25 to 30 per cent damage which is a big loss obviously. That's the profits," he said.

"I know not too far away from there there's growers who lost whole crops.

"It's just one of those thing. If you're in farming, you just have to take it on the chin and move on."

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Photo: This cotton crop has been decimated by huge hail stones, heavy rain and strong winds.
Horses killed and locals pick up dead birds

David Brodrick, from the Narrabri Shire Weather Station, believed winds reached over 150 kilometres in some parts of the region out of the weather station's reach.

He said people had been contacting him about animals killed by the enormous hail.

"You could see that this was a super cell storm on the Doppler radar," he said

"The highest winds that we recorded on a weather station from this storm were about 95 kilometres an hour.

"I've heard this morning about several horses which were caught in the storm have been killed.

"We've had several comments on our Facebook page about wildlife and dead birds. One lady said that she was sick of picking up a number of dead birds, so it's a really horrific event from that point of view."