Australian Severe Storms, Weather Events and Storm Chasing

[Jason(pato)]

29th December 2008

Well what an afternoon. Cells started to appear on radar from around 1pm but nothing got going locally until around 4pm.
After checking the radar I noticed some development to the SW of Casino so I decided to head out for look. Headed to a regular location about 10km south of Casino to watch the afternoon unfold. The cell that had caught my attention earlier was powering away, but new development to the west of the other cell aroused my interest. So my focus was on this new cell, initially it wasn't anything spectacular but that would soon change.

Early development of the cell that would later hit the Kyogle area.



Things really began to get organised not long after this pic was taken, with a nice guster coming into view from the SW






With a nice NE inflow into this cell it was really starting to intensify quickly



Lightning had really picked up in intensity too with many close stacatto bolts followed by canon thunder. I decided to venture another 1km or so down the road to get a closer view and this is what greeted me. Apologies for the dark spot in the corner, this was taken from inside the car as it was really quite dangerous to be standing outside



The amount of close CGs was incredible and at times quite frightening, with many dropping in front of the guster into the paddocks nearby within 500m. I decided that enough was enough and decided to hightail it out of there, but not before grabbing this



I put in a call to Michael Bath who indicated that the storm would avoid Casino and was heading north in the direction of Kyogle. I decided to make my way to Kyogle to try and get ahead of this now enormous beast. I was racing the storm with the lightning still flashing away ahead of the guster. While in transit I kept stealing glances at the incredible scene which was keeping pace with me it seemed. I stopped at a location about 5km north of Casino to try and get a pic of the beast. I couldn't believe it when I saw it, the sky had an angry turquoise look to it to I snapped off a quick pic and kept heading towards Kyogle

 

It soon became apparent that it was going to beat me there and around 15km south of Kyogle it hit! The rain and wind was absolutely incredible, certainly the most intense I've experienced. I pulled over onto the side of the road and waited for it to pass over me, that took a good 15mins. Having a guess I reckon the winds would easily have been in excess of 120km/hr with the rain being pulverised to mist. Visibility would have been reduced to around 40m at most. Amazingly with the amount of greenage that I saw I only experienced sporadic pea sized hail

 

Once it passed I decide to make my way home with the possibility of grabbing some lightning pics on the way. There was small amounts of debris and broken tree limbs about, but I reckon more substantial damage could've happened closer to Kyogle. Got some nice lightning pics from the retreating storm with rain finally forcing me back to my house

 

 

In all a pretty amazing day and definitely one of the more intense chase days I've experienced,

Hope you enjoy,

Cheers Jason

[leo76]

Well done to Jason and James! Some great shots there!

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

First, James and Jason, awesome cell on the North Coast once again!

Monday 29 December 2008

Headed out with the expectations that anything to fire further south would have to do so by about early to mid afternoon. The storms were downhill from then. Unfortunately, the storms in the Hunter became too cluttered leaving. I had thought about targeting the lower Northern Tablelands and even the Mid North Coast but the traffic near the Bulahdelah area was incredible when I headed down a couple of days ago.

Taking some friends from the Central Coast, we headed to near Singleton. The storms formed a line but this did not deter me given the occasionally strong inflow as it approached. But the line weakened and the main storm near Cooranbong was impossible to get to. I thought about heading north to Quirindi but that would have meant another 4 or so hours to the trip. I'll await the outcome of David and Paul's efforts up that way.

Here are a few images:





Right moving cell











Cell approaching Muswellbrook later - after this cell we turned back home.



Aftermath damage of the Cooranbong cell which turned out to be very severe:

Not sure why this car had its back window smashed in! Perhaps a branch?





These hailstones were photographed 4 hours after the storm. Apparently the whole lawn was covered by hailstones up to the size of golf balls.




--->  All photos for 29 December 2008


Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[indiie]

Here is a gif of some footage I got shot from my balcony of a plane flying over the story bridge in Brisbane surrounded by lightning.

http://i41.tinypic.com/20k2b6g.gif

Later I'll be posting the footage on youtube with my other lighting vids here

http://au.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=654014151BB870F9

*Edit* here's the vid

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Prvry1EBUiY

[Rodney Wallbridge]

Monday 29 December 2008

Gyday all, I grabbed a few shots of the squall line in SE QLD today.These pics were taken SE of Harrisville.  Awesome Piccies everyone that has posted!!!

 
 

[leo76]

indiie - we saw plane fly over here late in the afternoon/early evening and it was flying rather low. We supsect it was to get under the storm.

[indiie]

indiie - we saw plane fly over here late in the afternoon/early evening and it was flying rather low. We supsect it was to get under the storm.

Yeah that one didn't appear to be on the usual flight path. It came from the direction of the airport so not sure but it may have even taken off during the storm, or otherwise may have been circling? It certainly changed it's path and started circling back over the city after the close call!

[Michael Bath]

NSW North West Slopes and Plains

I have just received an email reporting hail to 50mm and 20mm of rain just north of Edgeroi. I heard 3rd hand of a house and cars being 'destroyed' by hail the size of oranges near Terry Hie Hie. And ABC News are reporting that houses lost roofs and power lines were brought down in Boggabilla today. Tamworth Airport AWS recorded a 107km/h gust during the storm down there.

David - I have been sent photos of gorilla sized hail from Kenebri, SW of Narrabri. Some of the stones are bigger than cricket balls and completely solid - not discs or jagged shapes - HUGE !   Seeking permission to show them here.

Terrific photos everyone. I wasn't able to chase yesterday due to family commitments in Ballina but still got some photos from here and there.

Pity the radar archives have failed, along with some key missing 1km VIS images yesterday afternoon.

MB

[Paul Graham]

Monday 29 December 2008

Dave Croan and myself chased through the Hunter to the NW Slopes.  A line of convection in clear air over the Dharug Nat Park area north of Sydney appeared solid and crisp, but we decided to pursue our target zone near Scone since this was closer to a region of higher CAPE forecast by the GFS model.  Looking north, it was apparent that storms were not developing into the clean clear air available to their cousins in the south.  There was little to inhibit them and the sky was murky with anvils from storms billowing up all over the place.  Sadly, from a chaser's perspective, this was going to limit the energy available and lead to the demise of some as they ingested rain chilled air.

Collage of storm gusting out near Scone




Backend of supercell east of Scone (late in the afternoon)

[Antonio (stormboy)]

We were coming home from Sydney yesterday (29 Dec 2008) to Ballina and at 2pm a severe storm with very strong winds, hail and flooding rain developed at Bulahdelah.

These are some pictures a movie will come soon showing what we came home to at 9pm

[nzstorm]

Yes, great photos there. It strikes me this is a particularly active storm season over there.

[indiie]

Yes, great photos there. It strikes me this is a particularly active storm season over there.

Nice pun ;). Yes I'd agree.. at least a half dozen lightning storms since last month.

[indiie]

A couple of screen caps from my vids taken last night (29 Dec). Not the best picture quality.

[Harley Pearman]

First lightning photos from storm chase 27/12/2008

My first photos of lightning that I took from my storm chase near Canberra - Queanbeyan region 27/12/2008. I was located SW of Mt Jerrabomberra looking west. The photos were taken between 12 noon and 1 pm.

Harley Pearman

[David C]

I thought about heading north to Quirindi but that would have meant another 4 or so hours to the trip. I'll await the outcome of David and Paul's efforts up that way.

Adding to Paul's post above, storm spacing was a problem with the upper Hunter at the time when there was cooling aloft. This storm that developed west of Scone looked nice in it's incipient phase but was soon buggered up by cool downdraft air from another storm just to the east.







What was interesting was the low cloud bases and the interaction with the nearby hills. Have never seen a hill enveloped by a shelf cloud at such close range before!



As for the storm that tracked through Breeza and on to Tamworth, well we just went drove through the plains hoping to wash the car. Lot's of close Cgs, very heavy rain with some small hail and strong winds.



A good chase overall, particularly with Paul now being based in Melbourne and me not getting much spare time to chase atm.