One farmer has captured an unusually good video of a severe microburst — a massive shaft of cold air that plunges to the Earth — in a thunderstorm in outback Queensland.

The footage filmed on Sunday by Peter Thompson, shows the weather event that looks like a giant ball of water falling from the sky.

The intense downward wind of a microburst can reach the speed of a hurricane. The microburst covers an area of less than 4 kilometres with intense winds that can last from two to five minutes, according to the American Meteorology Society, making capturing them not as common as its occurrence.

It's actually a relatively common, if extremely dangerous weather event — but rarely is it captured this well. Jeff Higgins, who runs the Facebook page Higgins Storm Chasing where the video was posted, said it was the best example of a microburst he had witnessed.

"This spectacular down draft and water bomb has just dropped from the sky and this would have to be the most significant, severe one I have ever seen," Higgins wrote.

The weather phenomenon has been linked to fatal airplane crashes, with the last one connected to a microburst occurring in 1994. US Airways Flight 1016 crashed on the runway at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina while attempting to land, killing 37 people on board. The probable cause is listed as a "microburst-induced windshear that was produced by a rapidly developing thunderstorm."

Delta Flight 191 met the same fate in 1985, when 136 of the 152 passengers and 11 crew died when the plane flew into a microburst and crashed. It was landing during a stopover at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Pilots are now trained on the dangers of microbursts and technology has been developed to detect the weather event before a tragedy occurs.