The violent storms bring giant hailstones, destructive winds, heavy rain and flash flooding.

For millions of Aussies it's been a week of extreme weather, with wild storms, damaging winds and sweltering temperatures sweeping over southern and southeastern Australia. And as we edge closer to summer, it poses the question -- is this a taste of what's to come?

Spring and summer are typically when more storms occur, with the most destructive type -- supercell thunderstorms -- also more commonly seen in the warmer months. While the storms are fairly rare, they are becoming more frequent, Dr Milton Speer, meteorologist and visiting fellow at the University of Technology Sydney, told Yahoo News.

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What are supercell thunderstorms?

Supercells are the "most dangerous" type of storm, with Weatherzone describing them as "a towering, rotating beast in the sky".

When a supercell hits, like it did earlier this week along the NSW and Queensland border, it can produce huge hailstones measuring more than 5cm, wind gusts in excess of 125km/h, heavy rain, flash flooding and even tornadoes.

Farmers in Northern NSW had their crops battered by hail, while 4,800 homes were without power overnight early in the week.

Supercells are more prevalent in spring and summer due to the heat, and need a "well-defined mix of atmospheric ingredients" to form, according to Dr Speer. These include warm, moist air that can be pushed up (usually by a low pressure trough), and wind shear -- the change in wind speed and direction with height.

Storms grow with rising air, called an updraft, and when the rain and hail in the updraft gets too heavy, it falls back to earth creating a downdraft.

With regular storms, the cooler downdraft ends up mixing with the warmer updraft, and the storms weaken.

But this isn't the case with supercell storms, as the wind shear tilts the storm and keeps the rising and falling air apart.

"A supercell storm has this rotating updraft, but it's generally tilted with separate downdrafts from the updrafts, which means it just keeps building in strength, and that's what makes it dangerous," Dr Speer explained.

Supercells can move in unexpected directions, which can make them difficult to predict.

Supercell thunderstorms more frequent, storms further inland

While storms are difficult to predict in a long-range forecast, Dr Speer said thunderstorms and supercell storms are more frequent now compared to previous decades.

He also noted another trend that's only occurred within the last five years or so.

"We're getting storms further inland because of changes in the atmospheric circulation, even in winter," he said. "You get them in Northern Territory, you get them in western Queensland and western New South Wales."

While they are usually thunderstorms rather than supercell storms, Dr Speer said "they're significant in places that don't normally get them", with the ability to smash monthly rainfall predictions in a single day.

And as to what's causing these weather shifts? Global warming.

"It's been well known from climate modelling that these atmospheric patterns will develop with global warming, just the fact that increasing heat from the equator pushes the whole general circulation poleward," he said, adding that it creates "instability" in central Australia and contributes to the storms.

Dr Speer said that while these changes are "exciting" to study, they are also worrying.

"Because it means longer periods of dry weather and these short-sharp periods of floods and heavy rain in places that haven't had it before," he said.

Australians are advised to keep an eye out on the Bureau of Meteorology website to stay up to date with severe weather warnings.

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