Farmers are counting the cost of hail storms, heavy rain and strong winds that tore through the central Wheatbelt on Monday afternoon.

The wild weather event, which stretched across areas including Bolgart and North Tammin to Southern Cross, in places dumped more than 40mm of rain, while crops were pelted with 3cm hailstones and lightning strikes caused spot fires.

At Tammin, WAFarmers president Tony York said his family’s 1300ha wheat crop, yet to be harvested, had varying levels of hail damage. About 300ha of that was destroyed.

He said neighbours had reported similar destruction.

“It’s very disappointing, although we are protected financially through insurance, we are not getting the reward of delivering what could have been a very promising crop after watching it grow all year,” Mr York said.

At Bolgart, Trevor Syme returned from fighting fires caused by lightning on a neighbouring property to find more 1000ha of his crop had been hit by hail.

He said 500ha of canola and lupins was wiped out. A further 600ha of Mr Syme’s wheat is expected to have about 60 per cent damage.

“We need to wait for the crop to dry out and the insurance assessor to come to determine whether we’ll put the header through the wheat,” he said.

Mr Syme said he had hail damage in the past but nowhere near this extensive.

“It’s difficult to spend all year growing these crops and then have them flattened at the final hurdle,” he said.

At Southern Cross, farmer Gary Guerini said hailstones pelted a strip 5km to 10km long and 3km wide.

Mr Guerini said his farm escaped the brunt of the storms, but about 200ha of his crop had light hail damage.

He said others in the district had far more severe damage.

“At this stage everyone is still driving around trying to work out just how bad the damage has been,” he said.

CBH Group Kwinana zone manager Andrew Mencshelyi said several areas had heavy rain and thunderstorms, including Goomalling, Dowerin, Tammin, Trayning, Warralakin and Bencubbin, and other isolated areas.

“It appears damage is not widespread, and most growers will be back on track for harvesting with clear weather forecast for the rest of the week,” he said.

“For those who have experienced a few heavy rain events recently there may be some impact on grain quality, but it’s too early to tell at this stage.”

Grain Industry Association of WA spokesman Michael Lamond said the wild weather was hit and miss across affected areas.

“The rain and hail was quite intense in some areas, but just down the road there may be no damage,” he said.