Storms 'swirling like a tornado' leave trail of destruction in parts of NT

Central Australian businesses and residents are assessing damage from severe, tornado-like storms that swept through parts of the Northern Territory.

Rain, hail and winds at speeds of nearly 100km/h hit the outback town on Monday afternoon, ripping roofs from houses, knocking down trees and powerlines and covering roads with leaf litter and mud.

Double Tree Hotel general manager Todd Grierson said multiple parts of the Alice Springs building were extensively damaged after footage circulated online of rain blowing in under the front doors and water pouring through the ceiling above the reception desks.

"There is just so much more throughout the building ... from our tenancies, to our beauty salon, other restaurants, our ballroom and meeting areas and back of house too," he said.

"But thankfully, the way any direction of this storm has hit us, hasn't had any effect on our guest rooms."

Mr Grierson estimated the repairs would cost more than half a million dollars to complete.

Alice Springs cafe The Roastery threw out thousands of dollars worth of food, after widespread power outages.

Owner Kim Hopper said the cafe received a delivery on the day of the first storm, but food safety rules meant they had to discard many products.

"Our staff are there at the moment just documenting it all and tipping hundreds of litres of milk down the sink," she said.

"It'd be thousands to replace that cost, but it's a loss of the sales as well...we'll be doing an insurance claim on that, and luckily we've got that in place."

'Unbelievable' storm widespread

About 20 kilometres east of Alice Springs, Undoolya Station copped a lashing, with owner Ben Hayes saying the storm was devastating.

"It was unbelievable lightning. I don't know what the hell's been hit around here, whether any of these trees have been hit, but a lot of them are screwed up."

Mr Hayes said there had been significant damage to infrastructure on the cattle station, including a lean-to collapsed onto a house, smashed windows, a chook pen blown away and the roof of an historic store room ripped off by wind.

"There's a lot of history in this room and [my wife] Nicole's rattling it all out, drying it out, trying to save as much as we can," he said.

"We've got a few shipping containers up the dump with a lot of these records left to go in there, until we can find somebody to help put a roof on this thing for us."

Meanwhile, cattle stations near the Northern Territory-South Australian border were battered with large hailstones.

Lyndavale Station, 250 kilometres south-west of Alice Springs, recorded hailstones the size of golf balls.