Australian Severe Weather Forum

NSW Northern Rivers Sunday 15th March 2009

Jason and I went out to Rodney's place near Casino during the afternoon to wait for some decent development to occur.



By about 5pm the activity over the Dorrigo Plateau was creeping closer to Grafton and also started to look a lot more powerful. So the chase was on with Jason driving. We headed straight down the Summerland Way to just north of Grafton. As per usual the trees along that road are very annoying with only a few viewing opportunities.





Near Junction Hill things looked a bit ordinary for a while with a weak shelf cloud over Grafton, but again took off towards sunset with a few cells slowly moving ENE or NE through the Clarence Valley.



The lightning was continuous but almost all of it was updraft or anvil lightning rather than CGs. With a few storm targets around, there was no luck having our cameras pointed when and where the few big CGs did happen. Despite the lightning not being user-friendly there was some lovely structure to be seen.



Including this very large horse-shoe vortex which persisted several minutes. A second smaller one formed next to this.









We repositioned a little north of Junction Hill. A few CGs were captured here but the rain soon arrived.



This forced us north to Whiporie. The lightning was continuous but even less of it was visible now despite some interesting inflowband like structure being illuminated.



Storms continued to spread further north during the late evening and early am with the last cell passing through Ballina. I spotted a couple of clear-air CGs from that but was not able to photograph them. Though storms have started again on the Northern Tablelands already this morning.

Michael

Looks like a interesting day is ahead of us there are already storms in the northern rivers around grafton and some in more-tenterfield-stanforpe area and already a severe storm warning.

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
for LARGE HAILSTONES, FLASH FLOODING and DAMAGING WIND
For people in parts of the
NORTHERN TABLELANDS and
NORTH WEST SLOPES Forecast Districts.
Issued at 8:48 am Monday, 16 March 2009.
Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce large hailstones, very heavy rainfall, flash flooding and damaging winds in the warning area over the next several hours. Locations which may be affected include Tenterfield, Glen Innes, Inverell, Tabulam, Baryulgil and Jackadgery.

Went on a storm chase yesterday through the Northern Rivers region yesterday. This was taken from in between Casino and Lismore looking towards Grafton:



Then drove down to Grafton but wasn't too sure what the storm was doing because I couldn't really get a good view due to the trees. Arrived in the Clarence Valley and saw something trying to get organised:



This storm had a fair bit of lightning:



Nice structure:



Stormy sunset:



The lightshow was amazing. I didn't get any good photos because I kept feeling my hair trying to stand on end. I don't think I was in a good place to take lightning photos - quite dangerous

Great photos there people!! Nice stuff in the NR! Jimmy your photos do not load? Glad you got onto that cell.. we suspected it may have been an LP SC due to its amazing backend structure but going by your post maybe it wasn't! We targeted upper hunter.. probably not the best spot, still managed to get close to that one that went through swansea (huge guster). Would have been magic to watch it roll over but not to be! A nice little lightning display off the coast at night too.
 rfb Aberdeen
Guster overhead
      
Base to south
    
  Big updrafts
Sunset clear air CG
    
  Larger version

Thunderstorms have been developing all day in central northern rivers and finally developed strong near ballina. We do not get hail often but today was spectacular we copped a huge dump of rain and quiet nice size hail for ballina area. There was a lot of rotation and greenage in the clouds my friend in Lismore said that they were golf ball size there. Here are the pictures.

On Monday the 15'th of March a number of storms developed near Coffs. I went out and took some shots as usual.

Some of the convection to my south was quite explosive:


Later these storms weakened but remained lightning active after dark and I was also treated to a nice sunset. If only these storms were a few kilometers closer to me on sunset these photos would be more spectacular though still very nice always got to love twilight lightning:






   

Hi,

I seems like a nice event with quite a few images from up and down the coast. Here are the images I promised and could not deliver because of server issues.

Photographs from the March 16 2009 - Part 1 The first storm - splitting cell with large hailstones Chase from Karuah to Bulahdelah

Note the storm split picture with a gap in two updrafts. This is the first time I have photographed such a feature from so close.

Also, note the base of the latter cell - there is the formation on the left hand side that shows the formation linked to the possible rotation region. This activity was there for 5 minutes.

Gorgeous photos everyone!

The past two days have been decent for me. Here in Warwick in SE queensland, we had some nice storm activity both yesterday and today.

Ill reply more on todays later when I transfer all my files over. For now heres Yesterdays.
Following some intense vertical deveolpment earlier in the day, several cells  began forming around the region. Luckily (due to my lack of transportation) one passed right over us. Didint bring any photographable lightning, only some very large drops of rain (sounded more like hail from inside) that lasted about 2 minutes. I missed some great structure shots as i was hurrying to get the washing in, but cant dwell over the ones that got away eh?
Anyway, heres the ones I did manage:


...Then my camera died. So I raced back to get my sisters.





this next came out really weird

I was dissapointed no lightning shots were possible but I was pleased to get anything!

Photographs from the March 16 2009 - Part 2 The second storm - spectacular shelf cloud This storm occurred west of Bulahdelah and weakened as it approached.

This storm showed signs of being rather nasty and in perhaps higher wind shear situations could easily have become nasty.

after a stormy afternoon a nice sunset with clouds illuminated orange and red

sorry about darkness

Some very severe storms in southeast QLD and warnings too.

For people in the MORETON BAY and parts of the BRISBANE CITY, LOCKYER VALLEY, SUNSHINE COAST, SOMERSET, TOOWOOMBA and REDLAND Council Areas.
Issued at 6:13 pm Monday, 16 March 2009.
The Bureau of Meteorology warns that, at 6:15 pm, severe thunderstorms were detected on weather radar near Dayboro, Moreton Bay, and northeast of Toowoomba. These thunderstorms are moving towards the east to northeast. They are forecast to affect Caboolture, Moreton Island, the area west of Esk and the area northwest of Esk by 6:45 pm and Esk, the area south of Esk and Beerburrum by 7:15 pm

March 15 2009


Gday All,

Just got a few pics to add to MB's from yesterday (March 15) chase with him and Rod to Grafton. Was going to add some in from today but by the time I got out it was just a grey rainy mess. Anyway heres the pics from yesterday.

Early development looking west from Rods place.



Structure near Grafton



A large and small horseshoe vortex (you can just make out the smaller one to the right)



Distant CG thought this would be a taste of things to come, but sadly it didn't turn out that way.



This one with my newly acquired 50mm f/1.8 Mark 1 lens.



Overall I'm glad we risked taking the drive to Grafton but a bit more CG action would of been nice. Still, great to get out again and might I add that whilst we were waiting for things to develop at Rods house his partner Sonya had whipped up the nicest blueberry muffins I've had in a long time..........mmmmmmmmmmm Blueberry (cue Homer Simpson drool here). Anyway I digress, hope you enjoy the pics

Cheers Jason

Getting pretty wild here with numerous close CG's and anvil crawlers. A lovely end to "summer".

Sounds like the north coast/SE Qld was the place to be today. Oh well.

Reports of 3cm hail just west of Evans Head on the news tonight so whatever went over there must have been a nice cell. Great photos all. Maybe by next summer the curse of the new camera will have worn off and the photogenic storms will stop avoiding me!

we had storms come through the northside of Brisbane from about 4.30pm, not a great deal of action, a bit of wind, sheet lightning and some good rain. I would say the southside of Brisbane faired worst than we did. The radar image shows the storms generating up from northern NSW this afternoon. Experimenting with new camera, the storm was spectacular than I was able to capture it.