Gday All,
Went on a quick chase to near Coraki after MB alerted me to the Grafton cell looking fairly severe. Was able to watch the cell creep up towards Coraki, whilst it still looked marginally severe it was soon to weaken. It had some nice structure at times and there was a fair bit of thunder booming from it. Witnessed some nice CGs and one clear air bolt that was way ahead of the storm. Had a chaser convergence with MB and James Harris as we watched the cell weaken. After 5 weeks of seeing nothing it was nice to hear the rumble of thunder again and witness cloud structure that was something other than Strattocrapulus.
Cheers Jason
Excellent clean structures there Jason – well done on the chasing today.
Jimmy
Chased down to Grafton this afternoon (Tuesday 20th Dec 2011) then back up home via the Summerland Way. Some early weak cells developed and tracked across to the coast (SE of Grafton) before the main event developed in the Nymboida area from about 2pm. Storms were certainly low topped initially with barely an anvil to be seen. The first photo at 2.30pm was when things started to take off a bit as the storm came off the ranges:
Spotted a few CGs. The base started to develop and a shelf cloud structure spread across the area
Lightning became more active as I headed north out of the area
Next stop south of Whiporie. The storm was really motoring along at this stage. Barely had a chance to take a pic despite travelling 45ks north.
Then north of Whiporie at 4pm
The storm was still moving at about 70-80km/h it seemed so had to move back up to Casino – where I finally got some views of the storm tops.
Then onto Coraki where I met up with Jason Paterson and James Harris. The storm carked itself very quickly after that.
Nice shots of the lightning Jase!
MB