Freak hailstorm in Queensland
© Julie SouthFreak hailstorm in Queensland's North Burnett region
Central Queensland grain growers say a freak hail storm that left a town looking like a "white Christmas" is unlikely to hurt the winter plant.

The storm passed through the Monto area of the North Burnett, west of Bundaberg, at about midday yesterday, blanketing a narrow path with pea-sized hail stones that resembled snow.

It continued on to parts of the Capricornia district and Gladstone, where larger hail stones were reported.

Julie South, from the Mulgildie Pub, said it was a day locals would remember.

"Absolutely amazing, I don't think anybody in the town has seen this before, it's just like snow," she said.

"White Christmas coming early.

"There [was] just white 'snow' everywhere, everything was white, the fields were white, it was beautiful."

Chairman of the Monto Grain Cooperative, Lex Dow, said the storm was highly unusual.

'It was an unusual winter thunderstorm, a lot of thunder, it was two or three storms that sort of split up and went this way and that way," he said.

"There was a fair amount of hail just in a narrow strip about a kilometre wide that went across the from the west towards the east, across the Burnett Highway near Three Moon.

"It was nearly six inches thick on the bitumen for a kilometre or so, but it was only small sized hail, so I'm anticipating that any crops that were in its path, because they are still fairly young; only probably three, four, six inches high, that the damage will be minimum."

Mr Dow said growers also received 16 to 20 millimetres of rain on top of decent falls a week earlier, which he said would be of great benefit to the crop.

"We're counting ourselves fairly fortunate to have that amount of rain even though the little bit of hail may have done minor damage here and there."

He said the falls had boosted confidence in the winter plant.

"This time of the year to have two lots of rain in quick succession like that is just ideal for winter crops," he said.

"It gets their roots down and we will now look towards probably a reasonable crop even with no more rain for another month or two.

"It's just a real bonus to have good winter rain and out of a storm, which is most unusual."

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster, Brett Harrison, said the unusual storm is unlikely to be repeated.

"The main reason for the hail was the upper level trough and upper level low pressure system that moved through the area," he said.

"There was very cold air associated with that so the precipitation that fell, a lot of it was of the hail variety.

"We saw hail for most of the northern half of the Wide Bay Burnett district and pushing right through into the Capricornia region."

He said the thunderstorm activity had now pushed out to sea with the upper level trough, and further storms were unlikely.