Chase Report - Goulburn Area - 12th January 2008All up a much better chase than I anticipated. I waited at home not wanting to chase that pulsing mess on the Blue Mountains. At that stage, almost 2pm it looked grim, however an isolated storm NW of Moss Vale had me on the road near 2pm.
About 90 mins later at Marulan I started to feel that a bust was on the cards. The local cumulus was struggling in the 5000 - 10,000ft levels, once past this they pulsed quite well. Without seeing the sounding my guess was an ugly warm slot. Surface conditions were excellent with near 21C DP's.
I noticed healthy anvil way to my south so I headed to Bungonia, then to Windellema. A nice line of storms was developing, the best was east in no-mans land.
Looking east from Oallen Ford
The line stretched along my south and way back west, so I knew I was in for a show. Just as the cell was looking good it became outflow dominated.
I headed NW hoping to get out of the outflow and back into the humid NE environment winds. I found an excellent vantage point on a lane that links the Tarago Road with the Windellema Road, called Painters Lane - one for future reference ! Here another storm with a black base was organising itself just south of Goulburn.
This cell was pumping out regular CG's, I even managed a rare daytime capture in reflex.
Rain finally called an end to this show and I headed towards Goulburn. I pulled up at Goulburn airport and right behind me Pingtang also converged. We got out of the car and rolled some video and was rewarded by a close CG grouning in the nearby airport - we both saw a puff of smoke or dust move away from strike area. We decided that life could be at risk and hit the cars, it started a deluge 1 min later anyway. Some flash flooding of streets in Goulburn as I headed eastwards back towards home.
A video of the close lightning is here
Some other video stills
