Storm Potential for central NSW 29th November 2011

Chased with Michael Keene and Steve Feral to the Central West on Tuesday/Wednesday. What a two days of highs/lows/missed opportunities/lucky strikes.

At Lithgow on Tuesday morning we had to make a decision on playing the Gulgong/Dunedoo region, or Parkes/Forbes. We choose an in between option of Wellington, which ironically may have cost us a direct intercept of the Sofala nuclear cell (with perhaps hail damage to our cars), but playing just Gulgong/Dunedoo may have led us to miss the Parkes action later.

At Wellington at 2pm it looked grim, however in the space of 30mins the struggling convection transformed and I bravely made a call that our first storm was not that far away. Unfortunately this storm developed just to our SE, as in 15kms SE, which if you are familiar with the countryside placed it in that popular storm development area of “no mans land”. We tracked this storm southwards along the Wellington – Orange road via Mumbil, at times getting within 20kms of the storm. We have no pics or video, but there were several clear air CG’s witnessed.

Obeying murphies law, this storm died before it reached the Great Western Hwy. We then headed towards Millthorpe with an intention of heading westwards to Cowra – Forbes, but became distracted by the nuclear development south of Mudgee.

This cell tracked almost due south, slightly rightwards of the main cells. There were at times odd mid layer cloud streaks into the cell. The solid hail shaft connection to ground was one of the most distinct I have seen in years. The question was not whether it contained hail, just the size.

All along we were aware of the developing line out on the plains. Although I did not like the option our plan was to secure accommodation at Orange (poor Steve had been driving his own car since 4:30am, while us two Michaels had shared), and perhaps intercept the line after dark west of Orange. However all Orange motels were booked out, a case near everyday of the week I am told due to the the modern day gold rush. Therefore we pushed on to Manildra and Parkes. Just on dusk the updraft of a cell west of Parkes come into view, although 150 kms away, it looked a beast and we saw one clear CG strike out into the clear slot between two storms, it must have landed 20-20kms from the storm!

We chucked our bags into the first motel we saw at Parkes and bolted down the road 20kms and saw some brilliant lightning. Conditions with 25 knot surface winds, light rain and B double trucks doing 120kms past you we far from ideal – not to mention the storm itself doing an estimated 60-70kms per hour.

This first shoot shows the storm just west of us, at this stage strong, and that cloud band looked inflow, not outflow.

Within a short 10 minutes the same storm had moved SE out of site and we had an interlude of anvil rain before the next cell trained through.

Picture spoiled by power lines and some rain drops on lens.

We then headed back to Parkes, but got surprised by a cell right in town. this was a little nasty with horizontal rain. Michael K captured on video the bolt of the day – a nice power flash!

Day two was very disappointing. Hopes were high with a 8am storm at Parkes with some well scattered CG’s.

However as we drove NE to Peak Hill and Dubbo we keep getting overtaken by mid layer convection lines that turned into rain with embedded lightning. We threw this off at Dunedoo, but by then everything was a mid layer cloud feast of epic proportion. We did get within a 100kms of the cells north of Newcastle, but there was no structure to be seen at all.

Jimmy’s original model post is pretty much how it ended up. The dry line ended up being the focus point for the most serious convection, but I did not have the faith to chase that far west,risking extra kilometres for a possible bust. Also very interesting and not normally seen on an Australian map is the pronounced dryline bulge. It is no coincidence that the nasty cells described by others developed here.

As for my next chase….I would like something that moved a little slower.

Video of the ‘nuclear’ cell near Bathurst, also a couple of extra pics.

The video below does not do justice, and as usual in Australia it is glimpses between trees. The first sighting we got of ground level showed a nasty cloud curtain on the SE side of the hail shaft, sorry this was not captured on video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncwvZpqykLA

This picture has had the blown highlights in the updraft column restored to show just how powerful and boiling the updraft was. This picture was taken 15-20minutes after the one in my earlier post. The overshoot has fallen back – this would be an interesting time at ground level for hail.

This view is looking south from the same spot as the pic above was taken. It shows the storms in the Cowra/Boorowa area. Although 100kms away the chances of mowing down these storms with the speed they moved was zero.