Australian Severe Weather Forum

Hi,

David Croan would obviously look back at this day with a smile as it was one hell of an afternoon and full of action. I happened to look through the archives and noticed this one popped out and thought I would share with all of you.



The setup was impressive with very high CAPE as rich moisture spread inland from a weak change aided by intense heating. This formed a boundary near Dunedoo that seemed to be oriented north south. Of course there may have been other boundaries but this was the moisture axis.

David and I had chased the coastal aras the day prior with high dew points and 40C heat breaking the cap to form an impressive MCS that ended up near Signleton. From here, David and I ventured inland and passed through the moisture to cumulus. we had lunch at Coonabarabran and then just wandered what to do next. By this stage, the cumulus had formed isolated thunderstorms but it was the storms to the east that exploded near Dunedoo and progressed north that took out interest! This was to be the beginnings of an intense and incredible afternoon with microbursts, hailstones and intense lightning barrages throughout the afternoon! From near Mullaley, we ventured to investiaget the core only to find outselves hit by a major microburst and near zero visibility. The storm was so violent that mud from the field was being splattered on our vehicle - the hailstones dented only the side panels! Even within this ferocity - the lightning and thunder was incredible! We were at the peril of the storm but eventually slwoly we made out way out the other side! The storm had virtually exploded into a beat on top of us. For the next few hours, we paralleled the storm north to Boggabri and then Narrabri. Of course, there was one of the most intense lightning barrage of staccato and series of long pulsing bolts as well as multiple activity we had ever observed! Each sucessive updraft were powerful and sufficient to entrain inflow until the massive dumps would drop into microbursts. To the east, powerful updrafts could be observed exploding with one locality experiencing a major dumping of extremely heavy rainfall!

The storm chase ended eventually near Moree and a lightning display complete with MCS. This is an example of a dream storm day Australian style and action packed at that!

Check out the report here:

http://www.australiasevereweather.com.au/storm_news/2002/docs/200212-07.htm

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

Videos can be view here at these following links - they are in order within the life cycloe of the strom complex and then followed by the last video which depicts timelapse of one interesting feature during of the several phases within the storms evolution:

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd01.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd02.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd03.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd04.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd05.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd06.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd07.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd08.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd09.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd10.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd11.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd12.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd13.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd14.wmv

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/movies/2002/1223jd15.wmv

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

You had a wild day
Were you core punching the storm ?   (i think core punching a supercell is very dangerous)

About the second picture:
Very explosive convection, If you remember, was there any large hail in that storm?

Regards,
Andrej

Andrej,

Yes core punching is dangerous and I guess we were trying to get east of this storm and had little choice. The storm intensified as we passed through it. But we were ok as we consider what is around and there was a lack of trees in the region.

As to the massive convection, yes that explosive tower seemed to have violent rainfall and flash floooding - I am pretty sure it would also have had hailstones in it. I am not sure of size. We had up to golf ball size driven at winds of 130km/hr giving the side dents. I recomment watching the videos.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

Wow!  An impressive close zap there JD.  Stuff this close is just so cool when you capture it.  A great read by the way and have viewed the links to the chase.  Top stuff and thanks for digging it out of the archives for us.