Topic: NSW, VIC and SE QLD Storms (incl Brisbane severe storm): 12-16 Nov 2008

[Harley Pearman]

I went out to Bathurst Friday morning taking advantage of what I saw on the GFS of 2,000 CAPE Environment for that region. Basically that region before I left seemed to be the place for thunderstorm activity at around 5 pm.

I spent the morning shopping and after lunch, I went up to the Mt Panorama Lookout and stayed at Mc Phillamy Park Lookout for a while watching the weather.

A line of thunderstorms did develop to the west and south west at around 4 pm and slowly made their way towards Bathurst. I was also testing out my little digital camera and I captured two cloud to ground lightning bolts first time ever during the day time (I need to work out how to edit the little 1 minute film clips I took). I also captured a small shelf cloud, a microburst and some interesting cloud structure and colour tones.

At 6 pm I left Mt Panorama Lookout. The storm intensified significantly around Mt Panorama with some very heavy rain plus 4 nearby solid cloud to ground lightning bolts. After that short lightning burst, there was not much more lightning.

Just east of Kelso, I drove into the core of the storm which contained heavy rain. By the time I reached Mt Lambie, the whole storm was rapidly weakening.

Through the constant rain around Mt Lambie, I saw a separate thunderstorm cell to the east around the Sydney basin with some great lightning in it but I had nowhere where I could stop and the rain proved to be a nuisance. I was too far away to get it and the rain did not help.

I had to let the Sydney storm go. Still, the main aim of the day was to catch some thunderstorm activity close to Mt Panorama and Bathurst. Now I have to learn how to edit my snippets I took.

Harley Pearman

[Richary]

Richary - The settings for that photo were ISO 100, Shutter - Bulb, Aperture 7.1. I had taken a few using 6.3 aperture however they came out too bright. In regards to the lights I tried a 30 second exposure earlier however it was all washed out thanks to the lights below so I tried to keep to 15 second exposures. The two strike shot was one hit. One of them seemed to pulse longer than the other.

Thanks. I was mainly getting fast crawlers that weren't that bright here hence the need to up the ISO speed, certainly no pulsing ground strikes here. I wanted to keep the F stop down a bit to try and ensure the tree in the foreground (backyard) would stay in focus if something bright did hit close enough to illuminate it.

[Richary]

Well, that nice left moving cell that the BoM  have warned looks like it has probably dropped some hail on the nrothern end of the F3. I wish I was there right now!

That cell that is about to hit Maitland is certainly looking impressive on the radar. The Hunter seems to get a lot more action that Sydney lately, I am going to have to head up there for a camping weekend sometime, though if the storms are around the camping might be in the car!

EDIT: Cessnock Airport certainly got some heavy rain (or hail) briefly - 8.4mm in 4 minutes isn't a bad effort:

4:05pm  0 mm
4:08pm  1.8mm
4:12pm  10.2mm
4:30pm  17.0mm

[Michael Bath]

Had a great storm chase this afternoon with Rodney Wallbridge and Jason Paterson, and also Beck Armytage who we met up with at Casino. Actually had a bit of car troubles with the engine overheating but it was only an issue when driving slow :-P

Went to a lookout 5ks south of Whiporie where we watched some fairly boring early activity and slow development of new cells.



It was pretty hot and humid though fortunately a cell developed immediately west (actually virtually overhead) which kept the sun off - otherwise it would have been unbearable. This 'storm' was anviling at the altocumulus level at first before slowly building. It shot out a couple of rather close CGs before collapsing with rain. This wasn't much but it was about the same time things kicked off properly.





A couple of substantial cells dominated the rest of the afternoon and produced a beautiful show of structure and then one of the best shelf clouds I've seen in years.

We took off north when it became apparent a stronger storm was developing to our west. This pic at Whiporie:



We then shot about 15ks north to one of few clearings along the Summerland Way between Whiporie and Casino. The structure was incredible here with powerful bolts hitting nearby. There were two strong cells: one to our immediate south which passed just east of us - and no doubt with hail, and another to the west - which is in this first photo:











The 'hailquoise' colour of the clouds was amazing !

The rain hit so we had to head back to Casino then east along the Coraki road to try and intercept. The timing was great as we were able to view the full shelf cloud structure as its peak. Even fluked one with lightning !





The shelf cloud soon collapsed but the storm activity persisted in the Casino area with heavy rain and some intermittent CGs.

---> all photos for 15 November 2008


Regards, Michael

[Shaun Galman]

Hi all,
Great shots and nice TL video from the last few days guys! Great to see :D

MB: What a amazing storm to chase! I bet you guys were pretty happy to get out and chase a great cell (that looks LP to start off but seems HP in the latter shots with some more outflow dominance, no doubt), and what a shelf shot with a neat CG to boot lol! Any signs of rotation on that nice wall cloud coming from the RFB?
I bet the hail would have been marble to golf ball in size out there in places!

I didn't see much in the way of lightning today, none infact? but I was treated to a nice base that formed on a large-ish cell directly over town. This pushed East fast and had an intense rain shaft on board not long after. The temps were high at 37.2ºc today, even with the cloud overhead!

Kindest regards,
Shauno

[Jason(pato)]

Gday All,

Had a most enjoyable afternoon of chasing with Michael, Roddy and Beck. The arvo started out relatively boring, but soon things developed nicely. Here is a selection of my favourite pics from the arvo.

Developing Base





Note the "Hailquoise" colouring



Weakening Shelfy



Panorama of the weakening storm



Hope you enjoy,

Cheers Jason

[Rodney Wallbridge]

  Gyday all, got out for a chase yesterday with Michael,Jason and Beck . Initally storms were very slow and messy high based.After a while it soon paid off to be out there instead of being at home though!! While racing ahead of cells yesterday some very steep temperature gradients were observed...24c in rain drove out of it back up to 32c. This was noteworthy as the sun had long been clouded out.Some smaller storms around the bigger cells may have helped inflow after collapse  into the others.

 
 
 
 
 

[shanesmp]

Absolutely stunning fellas. Thanks for sharing all your images and reports. Now I think Shane needs some more sleep, 5hrs of sleep and a big up hill hike doesn't go well (Grouse mountain hike). Hope everyone has been tops.

Shane will be back into the storm action come 17th Dec!

P.S. Love the curvature in that 4th pic Rods.

[Michael Bath]

A nice photo has been posted of the storm west of Maitland 15th November. 'Leopold' who took the photo and video reports hail occurred:

http://lee.bsch.au.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=7016

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h3H8fTBIhs

[Jeff Brislane]

Did anyone see the brief left moving cell yesterday on the 15th south of Grafton? It looked interesting on the Radar and seemed to have a hook. I hope someone got some pics of it.

This afternoon looks to be full of action up around the Northern Rivers and SE Qld. There is a nice right moving cell in northern NSW as well as a very large HP looking left moving cell crossing the border now.

Regards Jeff.

[enak_12]

Hi Jeff I watched that storm from Coffs.  I was at the beach at the time but decided to chase it anyway but it collapsed when I was watching it from Woolgoolga headland. I would have core punched it at this point to get on the north west side, the highway to Grafton turns northwest at the perfect time near there but the storm turned to crap anyway. I have no worthwhile pics to post of it for this reason either lol oh well.

[Jeff Brislane]

Enak, what was the structure like before it colapsed? It certainly looked ok on radar.

Currently there is a massive cell moving north over Brisbane with the CBD in line for a direct hit. It has it's own warning with a text box saying it is a very dangerous storm! Which is something i've never seen the BoM do before. We will probably here reports of large hail from this storm allthough i'm not sure it'll be like the Sydney hailstorm last year that saw hail to 9cm and widespread major damage but you never know. The radar reflectivity is very intense according to the new doppler.

Regards Jeff.

[enak_12]

Jeff, I couldn't really see that much there was to much rain on my side I  got a peak at a couple of decent updrafts on the back side but not much cause of the mountains as well. There was a few intense cg's out the back too.

[Steven]

I've been out and about today watching these MASSIVE updrafts go up to the south a bit earlier on. I'm now waiting for the main band which has just crossed Brisbane to head my way as it is getting quite dark now (moving fast too btw). Redcliffe webcam seems to have been knocked out.

Steven

[Steven]

This can't be good, I'm hearing reports of tornadoes and Channel Seven's roof (!) being torn off by high winds, the view down south is not to be believed. Nearly s#&^$ myself here.

Will be shutting off in a few mins.