November 24, 2007. Upper Western Area. Report and photo's.Hi guys,
Well the afternoon wasn't a total washout as it would have possibly seemed on radar. There were several small anviled cells about earlier on amongst alot of congestus. I'm not too sure weather or not is was more pulse formations or squall line from the swirling low pressure system sitting on the NSW-QLD border region? (perhaps someone can shed some light on this for me?) There were quite explosive updrafts during the afternoon, some cells forming in a matter of minutes, but would soon weaken and collapse. A few of these showed sparse lightning activity.
I headed back into town to catch up with Russ and wait for the lightning tracker activity to reach us. We were under the developing HP storm's edge that was approaching us from the North slowly. We decided to head on out for a few shots as we noticed lightning on the tracker about 10k's from town. As we approached the end of the street we were surprised by a monster shelf cloud that formed on the southern edge of the large storm around 7:20pm. This must have been very inflow dominant as the wind gusts we experienced were very strong.
3:36pm. Explosive updrafts kicking off the afternoon's action. Taken 10k's north of Lightning Ridge on the Castlereagh Highway, facing south west.
One of the first cells to show a sign of structure and lightning activity. Taken from the same area as the photo above but facing north.
The monster shelf cloud that formed at 7:20pm on the southern edge of the large HP storm approaching Lightning Ridge from the north. This panorama is a 180degree view from west to east.
Russ (pictured on right) and myself trying to stand upright and shoot in the strong inflow winds!
7:28pm. I took this shot just before the shelf cloud weakened and broke apart, we were lucky to catch it as it was very short lived in it's cycle.
Not a bad outcome from an afternoon/evening of mostly weak high precip. storms.
Cheers guys.
Shauno.
