Severe thunderstorms wreak havoc across South Australia

Dangerous thunderstorms have wreaked havoc across South Australia, damaging homes and leaving thousands without power. 

At Mount Eba in the Flinders Ranges, a menacing dust storm cloud engulfed a property, forcing residents to seek shelter indoors as the supercell passed.

Hundreds of kilometres away, a home in Quorn suffered severe damage as its roof was ripped off, leaving debris scattered across surrounding paddocks.

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The strongest winds recorded in the state was a gust of 137km/h in Port Pirie. 

"The wind just picked up and (we were) hearing things moving around and you know falling down and getting ripped off of things," local resident Wendy Broad said.

Emergency services were run off their feet, responding to numerous reports of fallen trees and flooded streets.

Roxby Downs also experienced wind gusts of up to 130km/h, leading to the shutdown of operations at the Olympic Dam mine due to fallen power lines. 

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The mine is expected to remain offline for a week.

As much of South Australia was plunged into darkness, a mesmerising display of lightning strikes lit up the sky.

"Overall, our detection system has over 130,000 lightning strikes cloud to ground with that system, so quite extensive lightning strikes across the state," Mark Anolak from the Bureau of Meteorology said.

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.