Topic: NSW / VIC / QLD Storms 20-26 January 2009 and whinge thread

[Dave Nelson]

  one storm cell already passing ~ easterly through the Mudgee area  (1120hrs EDT)   
and this high crap over the basin is starting to move off to the east    and a few small fluffies are visible in the west

yaaaaa          Good Hunting ... Macca

Dave N

[James]

Norsty mixing with the NW'er in Sydney, DP has crumbled. Is it too late to add another chapter to your DVD David?

Some nice towers going up to my west, you can see the effect of the drier air up high compared to yesterday. Updrafts have a much nicer crisp look to them today.

[Colin Maitland]

Some storm warnings for around granite belt at 2.12 pm 24/01/09

Not much has been happening in Brisbane. All has been quiet for the last few weeks.

Took a trip out near Dalby yesterday, 23/01/09.
About 1.30 pm a storm was trying to build East of Dalby, it threatened, rumbled, and turned into not much more than a heavy rain band. Toowoomba coped a good downpour as we got there, a slow trip back down the range and that was about it. It was all over for any storms or rain for Brisbane last night.

More chance today.

Looks like once again Brisbane storm band is building from Northern NSW and heading North East, although this particular cell from the granite belt seems to be heading NNW today. This has been a different direction for our storm season of 2008/09. Most storms build to the West and come in over the Lockyer/ Brisbane valley, build intensity, and then hit Brisbane, then  moving out to sea.

[Antonio (stormboy)]

Nice shots there coltan today looks like another interesting day storms have developed all over the place on the Grafton radar.

[Dave Nelson]

Hi all,
             Cindy and I chased a set of major cells up through the Hawksbury and towards Newcastle this afternoon.
  We didnt go all the way to Newcastle, had we started chasing an hour earlier we would have. 
The chase actually had ulterior motives .... namely it was too flaming hot at home and was considerably more
comfortable in the car with the air con going ... so was more a fun chase than something serious.

  The Newcastle area got hammered by this tight group of cells. By the time we got back to West Ryde the southerly
buster had well and truely done its deed by dropping temps some 15C +   thankfully!!!

Dave N
 

[Shaun Galman]

Upper Western NSW / Southern QLD Storm Report 24th Jan. 2009
Hi guys,
I was really going to jump on and have a good 'ol whinge just to be sociable tonight lol but as fortune would have it the storm gods smiled upon Russ and I again this evening!

We went out earlier on, around 6:30pm braving the hot temps which had fallen from 40ºc all the way down to 38ºc by 7pm (lol) to see what the two storms in our area that were visible on the NSW radar looked like (really missing the Moree radar right about now!) These were not really impressive to look at but showed decent flanking lines and good anvils along with the odd powerful updraft. Humidity was (and still is) REALLY up there so we returned home to see what would eventuate. By 8:30pm I thought I'd have a glance outside only to see an amazing looking sunset lit anvil attached to a large updraft tower! This was extremely active throwing out countless CG's and the odd CA's. We raced out to our Bald Hill vantage giving us several hundred kilometers of horizon view stretching from the SW - N - NW and back around to the West. There were seven active storms clearly visible, showing on radar to be just on the QLD border and stretching back to Moree at that time. I threw the trusty 10mm Sigma lens on and set to it capturing a few dozen CG firing from the rear of the updraft core. We continued photographing until 15mins ago (10:45pm EDST) and were still just getting CG and structure from the massive storm line along with crystal clear star lit skies! We got quite a shock when we saw the radar (on Russ' mobile) as the storm we were concentrating on and still getting good photos from was/is nearing St George QLD over 160klms away as the crow flies! (just about to hit there now on the radar 11pm EDST)

I will post the photos asap tomorrow :D
Take care and kindest regards,
Shauno

PS. Your all welcome to come and chase here if you're missing out! We have enough unobstructed photographic locations for everybody lol!

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi Dave,

The chase actually had ulterior motives .... namely it was too flaming hot at home and was considerably more
comfortable in the car with the air con going ... so was more a fun chase than something serious.

Sounds like the same motive we had.

Chase Report January 24 2009

Imelda, Kimberly and I decided to head north towards Taree in anticipation of action either to the north earlier and then back south later. I continued north to ensure that I was in sufficiently deep moisture. Cumulus were observed near Taree so we had a rest here.

After a small bite a McDonalds, the now glaciated cumulus and developing storm approached. This storm dominated and remained active until it hit the coast just south of Laurieton.

Our attention then turned back to the original target and back south. In fact, the storm was nearing Coolongolook where I timelapsed the developing shelf cloud structure. The slow moving storm complex had a massive anvil but not much substance to it. Nevertheless, it was photogenic.

Finally, we enjoyed some nice lightning at Forster as this storm passed over the area. This includes some nice stills of lightning with the glowing setting sun. Had little opportunity to set up the camera so I just videoed.
















All photos for 24 January 2009

Regards,
Jimmy Deguara

[Richary]

Strill up in Brisbane, and flying back to Sydney tomorrow. Some very distant flashes from the severe warned storm that was tracking north near Toowoomba about 6pm, still lighting up the sky a long way off about 8pm. Otherwise, it is just hot and humid here. Not used to getting out of the air conditiioned car and having the sunglasses fog up on me!

[James]

Nice structure in those photos Jimmy/Dave. Is that a photo taken from North Brother lookout above? Great lookout there although a chainsaw could be handy to knock down a few more trees.

Last night would be one of the most warmest and moist nights I have slept through in a long time. Temp didnt get below 24 here and DP was sitting on 22 to 23. Thankfully the A/C was fixed on Friday and in full use throughout the night. Felt like Darwin walking outside this morning.

[Jimmy Deguara]

James,

Is that a photo taken from North Brother lookout above? Great lookout there although a chainsaw could be handy to knock down a few more trees.

Correct and correct. The elevation of the hill/mountain is 490 metres.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Macca]

Hi all,

Went for a bit of a drive yesterday.  Its hard to not chase when instability was as nice as yesterday (-6 LI's and 3000j/kg CAPE) and whilst shear wasn't ideal, it was enough to allow for brief periods of storm organisation. 

Managed to lob onto the initial storm as it came up from NSW.  We positioned ourselves just west of Killarney and watched as the storm slowly moved up towards us (clearly moving N to NW).  It was pushing out some CRAZY clear air CG's and the associated nice booming thunder.  As it neared, it intensified nicely and even exhibited some half decent base rotation as a little clear slot kicked in. 

Eventually it made it to our location so we moved about 3km up the road (towards Warwick) and we stopped after I saw a brief small funnel (lasted about 20 seconds).  While we were stopped here, the barrage of CG's continued and as I was looking out the passenger window (wound down) a CG hit in the field 30 metres away...wow.  Seriously WOW!  The sound was incredible (but gone so fast).  It seemed to hit an old rusted water tank (literally just 30 metres away) and a big puff of smoke rose up out of the field immediately after it occurred.    After a barrage of profanities from me and the g/f and a checking of the cleanliness of our underwear, we continued another few km down the road (close CG's continuing to hit around us). 

Eventually this cell weakened as the outflow took over and it came very close to dying all together so we headed back to Warwick to decide what to do next.  There was a nice cell over to the west of Allora and we initially headed for it but the original storm had kicked up another massive updraft on the outflow of the earlier phase and it looked great so we headed for it.  It moved into no-mans land a bit (east of Allora but west of Boonah area) but was moving north so we headed up to Clifton and then down to Gatton but by this stage it had kicked out a BIG outflow push and whilst it was photogenic, it wasn't going to survive much longer so we called it quits and headed back to Brisbane (but not before running in to AC, Dave and Phil in Gatton). 

I was a little worried when after dark the next storm/s from NSW were starting to look good and the lightning looked quite frequent but I later found out that it was significantly CC lightning and not overly photogenic so good decision made .

Overall a pretty good day given the warm upper levels and not ideal shear. First chase of 2009 for me and the closest i've been to lightning ever. 

Photos from the day here... http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/Season+08/240109/

Macca

[Michael Bath]

Chased Sat 24th January 2009 with Rodney Wallbridge and Jason (Pato). We targeted the ranges due to the setup which was going to produce north or NW moving cells.

The first storm of the day developed near Tabulam though we proceeded further west to Tenterfield. The cumulonimbus development was impressive with very high tops often capped with pileus. The first big storm of the day developed just to our NE and tracked through Legume, Killarney.







We headed north to Warwick however the cell had weakened not long after crossing into Queensland. Fortunately it did manage to regroup for a while and produced a nice display of lightning to our east.



Other cells developed overhead from the outflow but our attentions returned to the south were the next line was approaching from.



We moved to near Killarney. The line produced a fairly long shelf cloud which didn't look all that strong. However it did intensify in one area producing quite a lot of lightning and eventually heavy rain. It was surprising how quickly some of the storms were moving today given what I thought was fairly light steering winds.





The sunset was very nice but we were too far away to get near the next cell (behind Jason and his new car) until it was dark.



The staccato show west of Warwick was very impressive, but finding clear areas along that Millmerran road was a PAIN!



Very enjoyable chase, getting home at 2am. Lots more pics I could have shown as it was a very photogenic afternoon and evening. Thanks to Rodney for the driving.


---> all photos for 24 January 2009

Michael

[Michael Bath]

Wow - that IS close Macca ! During the drive west from Warwick in the evening, a branch of a staccato flashed right in front of the chase vehicles. It was very, very fast - and close. No thunder was heard.

Today we have had a thunderstorm already (just before 11am) - an onshore type though a couple of CGs were observed to the immediate north despite so much low cloud around.

MB

[Shaun Galman]

Hi all,
Great storms there MB, awesome sunset too! That's some nice base structure there too Macca! Glad to hear there was a funnel out there. I understand well enough about the CG's! I was marveling at the constant lightning coming from the 7 storm cells that we could see from here! Any way I have a few photos to share from the main storm that went up towards St. George yesterday evening. There were 5 large cells to the right side, stretching out towards Mungindi and one, possibly two later-on to the left.


This is the "main" storm cell pushing up through Hebel and on to Dirranbandi at this time 8:45pm EDST. We've been extremely fortunate to have these storm on sunset lately! It's been a real treat for us :D

This storm had virtually come from nothing though conditions were really primed! (as they are today again) Great to see such a strong cap and the flanking line in tow.

8:52pm and my first CG capture. I was debating whether or not to put my 18-55mm lens back on but I decided the entire scene was just too good to pass up!

I think it was around this time that I noticed a rather large and very bright shooting star come right down on top of this cell! I wasn't exposing at that point so yelled out to Russ to see if he saw it but he wasn't exposing either lol? Oh well.

Getting distant now 9:13pm, pushing around 150k's from us and getting nearer to St. George, also the activity was going nuts! Here you can see one of the other cells that lined the horizon in front of us.

9:16pm and the stars were really dominating the sky now. This was my last CG/star photo for the evening. We stuck around until 10:40pm doing various star trail experiments etc. but soon called it a night. I think I was at ISO1600, f/4, 25seconds @ 10mm for this photo?

All in all a great way to cap off a disappointing, stinking hot afternoon watching the storms split around us in the distance. See what happens today. I've just had my storm warning via the EWN but there's nothing on the horizon as yet? I'll be waiting..

Regards and take care,
Shauno

[Jason(pato)]

January 24th 2009

Gday All,

Just a few pics to add to Michaels from our chase to the Downs yesterday.

View of cell WNW of the Mallanganee lookout.



East of Warwick



Guster south of Warwick



Same cell as above dumping its contents



And a couple tasty clear air CGs to finish the night off





Another long but enjoyable chase meeting up with Roddy and MB in Tenterfield. Over 10hrs and around 600km covered. Was great to test out the new chase vehicle, a Subaru Forester GT a real step up in luxury from my old Subaru Brumby lol.

Hope you enjoy,

Cheers Jason

PS. Great stuff again Shauno some real great storms in there. Awesome lightning. Keep up the great work!