Some photos from the storm chase Jason Paterson and I did yesterday through parts of the Northern Tablelands and Darling Downs regions.
Early convection was very low topped but a cell finally took off just northeast of Tenterfield. This cell was quite lightning active. We chased it along the Mount Lindsay Highway to Legume. We didn't quite make it in front and got hit by strong winds and hail to 2cm at Liston.
Proceeded on to Killarney where they had just copped a microburst. A small funnel roped out in the mid levels on the western flank.
After a while more storms spread northwards from NSW into the Killarney area. This LP looking storm had virtually no lightning but had great contrast in the late afternoon sun. Jason will have a nice timelapse video of it. It also produced microbursts and photogenic skies to our east.
The final show was this storm which was initially southwest of Warwick and tracked NNW before dying after sunset. It punched much higher than any other convection we saw - and also has some lightning. The anvil was impressive.
Thanks to Jason for all the driving - about 700ks! A bit more lightning sure would have topped off the chase.
MB
Gday All,
Here are my pics to add to Michaels and to the plethora of other awesome images in this thread.
Started the day at our original target of Deepwater. There was a nice cumulus field but nothing really gathered much height.
After watching some stuff get organised further north near Tenterfield we decided to make a move and observe the action from a little closer. Unfortunately we were a little late in leaving and we arrived in time to watch the cell marching northwards.
Again after a bit of time observing this cell we made the call to head over the border towards Killarney to which the cell was heading for. During the drive we finally encountered the cell at Liston (approx 25km SE of Killarney) where we encountered a smattering of hail up to 2cm. Visibility was reduced to about 50m at times and on one occasion I had to stop as I couldn’t see the road in front of me. Michael remarked that we may have been in the base as we were at around 500-600m in elevation. Finally we got ahead of the cell NW of Killarney and we watched it pass just to our east.
This cell produced a few of the rare CGs spotted today but were very infrequent at this spot
We let this cell go and looked for our next target. A cell to the SW of Warwick caught our eye so after grabbing a quick few pics we moved up to Warwick in hope of seeing some lightning.
Unfortunately we were disappointed in this department again with only a few distant CGs spotted and hardly worth the effort of setting the cameras for. We just had to settle for an awesome sunset display over Warwick with the anvil being lit up beautifully by the setting sun.
After these last shots we decided to call it a day and make our way home. After 13.5hrs on the road I arrived home somewhat satisfied with the days proceedings. Although we didn’t encounter any real severe weather the photogenic nature of the cells made it all worthwhile. Thanks to Michael for his company, I hope I didn’t talk your ear off too much MB
We let this cell go and looked for our next target. A cell to the SW of Warwick caught our eye so after grabbing a quick few pics we moved up to Warwick in hope of seeing some lightning.
We decided to head into Warwick for a bite to eat (trying to find the new location of KFC proved to be a challenge) and wait for the next lot of action to arrive.
We again ventured out to a vantage point that overlooks Killarney and waited for the next cell to advance from the south. It was quite slow moving and I was able to grab some nice timelapse which I’ll post later. It had some interesting base characteristics and again was quite photogenic.
Meanwhile some updrafts to the east caught my attention and were the crispest looking of the day.
After deciding that we should reposition we core punched this cell and again were greeted by some quite intense rainfall. We repositioned ourselves just outside the precip area and watched it move to the NE. The afternoon colours turned on a spectacular display with a nice rainbow and the contrast of the retreating storm against a wheat field was very nice.
We let this cell go and looked for our next target. A cell to the SW of Warwick caught our eye so after grabbing a quick few pics we moved up to Warwick in hope of seeing some lightning.
Unfortunately we were disappointed in this department again with only a few distant CGs spotted and hardly worth the effort of setting the cameras for. We just had to settle for an awesome sunset display over Warwick with the anvil being lit up beautifully by the setting sun.
After these last shots we decided to call it a day and make our way home. After 13.5hrs on the road I arrived home somewhat satisfied with the days proceedings. Although we didn’t encounter any real severe weather the photogenic nature of the cells made it all worthwhile. Thanks to Michael for his company, I hope I didn’t talk your ear off too much MB
Michael and co,
Nice imagery from a relaxing trip I guess – I like some of those chases that are not so full-on!
Nice base funnel by the way.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara