Interesting storm that Gunnedah one. Obs at the time were 21/15 (at best) which gave an LCL of about 3,500ft and looking at the sounding for the day with those obs, the storm tops would've been only 25,000ft. Pretty short supercell! But with 70knts at 500mb and 35-40knts at 700mb, its quite an impressive shear profile. Instability wise, the above obs on the Moree sounding produced results of LI's of about -4 and CAPE of about 1300jkg.
In terms of chasing that area, early season storm days such as this are very hit and miss. All of the models had the trough scooting through this area and sitting near the coast up until about 24hrs out when they started to develop a surface low over central western NSW which kept the surface trough back over the NWS&P. The surface low ended up being quite deep and was nicely tilted west with height so that dry air was able to wrap around the low in the mid-upper levels. For anyone considering a chase, it was a pretty big risk (high chance of a bust) and given that its 6-7hrs from Brisbane and Sydney and even a solid 4 hours from the NR's and for what seemed like a low chance of fast moving storms (that possibly wouldn't have enough instability to stand up against the strong shear).
Definitely lessons learned from the way the day unfolded - fortunately its very early in the season so hopefully there are plenty more opportunities for everyone to get out and chase.
Macca
