Hi guys,
Just got back from a long chase with brad, heres the first day of the action summary. Pics will follow when I have time:
Brad and I met up at Mount Cooper, decided to get north of dividing range and sit of the northern flank of the cells that were forming....we ended up seeing some fantastic vertical structure as storms were splitting willy nilly...im guessing because of the relatively straightline hodograph conditions...unfortunately we quickly realised that the split was usually follow by cell death, first the right then the left. Anyway, shot up through Whittlesea to avoid peak hour (just before 3pm), saw a couple mushroom cloud type updrafts and some interesting base structure with frequency CGs. Following this we continued up the Hume north, spotting a mid-level funnel on the way...i commented to brad that the rapid updraft formation was probably indicative of landspout potential (how right I was). An on the road check of weather conditions and a bit of sky scanning quickly suggested that North and Northeast were pretty much out with solid convection towards bendigo.
Numerous Mid-level funnels were spotted as we move west past Heathcote, and possibly coincided with Rikki's landspout....probably to our south in the low contrast environ. We skirted the edge of Bendigo eyeing off the dying storm to the south, and decided to pursue a storm near Maryborough which appeared to be left moving and intensifying...ended up west of Bendigo, through Eddington to Dunally, where we observed another nice cell with mid-level funnel features, and a couple of other weird things, plus numerous inflow bandings particularly as the cells organised. These cells and the Maryborough cell collapsed but a new storm formed to our east...on the road again following what was the Bendigo cell, while we were following this we noticed what appeared to be an isolated large wall cloud to the south, which was obscured by rain as the parent collapsed, and more mid-level funnel activity. The amount of clear air and CGs from the Bendigo right split was amazing....as was the collapse of the left cell...unfortunately we got stuck going through town when this cell was at its best. However, on the other side we noticed another cell develop and feed off the right partner, and gave chase...spotting an amazing corkscrew wall cloud with strong persistant funnel....had we not been attuned by the number of mid-level funnels seen we might have missed it but this event was far lower and much more impressive that anything else. Anyway as it disapated we set up on the final storm (last storm before diurnal end killed everything), it underwent a similar lifecycle to most cells of the day, moving slowly and developing good features with tilt and inflow band, then a rapid collapse as the slow progression resulted in the outflow being ingested. However the lighting allowed us to catch some stunning CG action...many double intertwined CGs and even a paralleled tripple with intertwine that was just unreal...a few crawlers and this cell ended the day.
I would say its one of the more amazing chases i've had in Victoria in terms of providing a huge range of different chasing items...while the storms weren't the most intense and often died at frustrating moments the slow movement and atmospheric instability were superb...potential for alot of daytime CGs, organisation, funnels, and alot of interesting phenomena. I can only hope that the shear tomorrow is more favourable to ensure a greater longevity. I should also state that while we covered alot of distance we were constantly chasing one storm or another and had to adjust targets accordingly. Will post pics when I can ...damn pest control people coming in the morning...and Ill be out again tomorrow afternoon.
In terms of day two targets:
Shear environ is certainly going to be alot more interesting...probably more likely to get squall lines with a straight but strong hodograph...depends how it reacts to -4 LIs and CAPE to 1700. Chase time is probably going to be similar to today as there is reasonable CIN with the plays dying on dusk unless convection is sustained. I wouldn't play too far west either as it looks like that area will stabilise in the afternoon. So target area is west of Melbourne along the seabreeze/convergence line.
