It is once again looking unstable over a large portion of NSW today particularly the inland from the ranges. Storms can be anticipated across much of NSW due to the combination of intense heating and moisture. The upper levels are modest with temperatures of -11c over the North West Slopes and Plains according to the models. The heating should easily provide the much needed energy to fuel thunderstorm development this afternoon and evening. Winds should push storms generally in a northeast direction.
42 thought on “Storms central NSW 28th November 2012”
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Should be a great storm day out there!
I'm heading out ASAP!
chased today from taralga north to portland. i intercepted some amazing severe thunderstorms and got awesome video and pics. phenominal lightning!
I put myself at Ilford watching the boundary for action , apart from a brief lp cell it was a bit boring until the cells from cowra came through , beast!
Nick, Harley and I are here in Lithgow MacDonalds recovering from some wild severe storms. Hail and violent winds and absolutely blinding rain with little visibility were the order a couple of hours ago. Lightning incredibly active. Oh and Jeff is about to join us!
Another from around ilford
Sounds awesome. U were probably on the edge of a boundary, I did c 1 very active cell around there earlier. Some storms heading towards Narrabri now.
I will post a video sometime in the near future. It was quite a spectacular event.
Yesterday, I went to Bathurst and watched a number of small early storm cells build around Bathurst. They produced some interesting cloud contrasts and shapes against a clear sky. I watched these from the top of Mt Panorama overlooking Bathurst.
Late afternoon, a pair storm cells closed in on the Bathurst region, one from the south and one from the west. I almost chased the southern storm as I knew I could get to it but as I was leaving Bathurst, I looked in my mirror and saw rapid development on the northern one and realized I could get to that one as well. I had to make a quick decision. I turned around, went back into Kelso, then turned north towards Sofala and chased it down. I took a number of photos as I closed in on it.
I turned off the Sofala Road at a tiny township (Not shown in my Atlas) onto a small country road that took me directly towards the storm. That road turned into a good gravel road. I kept going and that road entered a farm. I kept going where I drove into heavy rain and gale force winds. I had to get out of the car to remove a big tree branch that had crashed down. I chased that storm within a farm and went deep into it and found the hail core. I had hail to at least 2 cm and possibly 2.5 cm and very heavy rain which made driving difficult on that gravel road. I was inside the core of it for a while. After it moved east, I slowly made my way back to Bathurst and made contact with Jimmy.
I took photos of flooded roadsides. It appears Bathurst city missed both cells but Kelso suffered some very heavy rainfall which was evident by the amount of water flowing through roadside drains. I drove towards Lithgow through another storm and some very heavy rain and lightning flashes even passing a tree that had fallen across the highway. I met Jimmy, Jeff and Nick Moir at Mc Donalds at Lithgow which ended another good storm day. Amazingly, I have had storms on 4 days in a row now. I will post a few photos once I have worked on them.
Nick, your photos are great and similar to what I was seeing. You were not too far from me. I was close to Sofala before I turned off the main road. Its good to know what occurred a few kilometres further to the east.
Jeff you video is insane! Well done can't wait to see it online – I guess Lithgow MacDonalds gave us that preview opportunity. Nick and Harley got a nice shelf cloud structure with great contrast.
What a great evening and good to meet up with others afterwards. The still image and video below was taken at approx 5:20pm yesterday near Porters Retreat and shows an organised cell with inflow, rotation and hail/rain core. It had hailstones to about 2cm and was a precursor cell to the cell that Jimmy witnessed near Tarana.
Meanwhile, further north at Glen Innes…
We started yesterdays chase from Forbes. At 9am in the morning some mid level convection could be seen on the far southwestern horizon near Lake Cargeligo. This did nothing for hours , however this was the line that eventually initiated near Temora extending up to Forbes.
Our first storm of the day was on the northern end of the line, a scrappy high based thing, which put down a cg every 5minutes or so. The was located to our south/southeast at the time… We watched for a while, before heading southeast towards Cowra. We caught brief glimpses of the Cowra storm, but only in the distance and we couldn’t make out structure as other weak storms were in the way… 30kms north of Cowra, we finially saw the Cowra cell, and it was weakening significantly at this stage. The anvil was thick however and the jetstream carried it over the entire area shading things out.
Things didn’t look too great with numerous cells in the area, but no dominant storm. We did however see a stronger looking rainshaft 40kms our northeast. There was also a rain free base on the southern end of this rainshaft( which would eventually become the Bathurst black core) So we headed east to Canowindra and then northeast to Orange. This part of the trip was quite exciting as we eventually caught up to the storms which seemed to significantly pick up in strength possibly due to upsloping and better moisture conditions. For 20kms or so we were running adjacent to core of this storm, with a very healthy and particulary large rain free base over head. The road continued Northeast, and near Orange the storm was just 1-2kms to our north,heavy rain strong outflow winds ,cgs, and hail. Sometimes the road tracked northeast and we were briefly in the edge of the core, but whenever the road turned more easterly we were out of the core again. It was at this stage, where we were nearly collected by a sheet of roof iron whilst doing 80km/h. Nasty stuff.
The drive through Orange was frustrating. Heavy rain, lightning,and swirling winds as the cell overtook us. With slow traffic it seemed we’d never get ahead of the action, however we did exactly that once we got back into the 100km/h zone… Just out of Bathurst, we pulled over again and briefly filmed the black cored storm 10kms north of us. It contained some nasty looking outflow features,and visable hailshafts/greenage.. We were in the only clear area in the line of storms which extended from south of Oberon to almost Wellington… However this did not last long, as 3 or 4 different rain free bases within our close proximity, rapidly gave way to heavy rain again.. In Bathurst, the heavy rain and close lightning seemed set in,and slow traffic had us worried, however we broke into the clear again 20kms east of Bathurst with the whole line threatening to mow us down. As we got within 20kms of Lithgow, we finially got some breathing space to the storms behind us( only 5kms ahead mind you) A look behind us revealing a very nasty black and green shelf cloud which seemed to extend from horizon to horizon, we pulled over and grabbed 5minutes footage, before lettting the storm roll over us..It seems the Oberon storm did a left mover, and ran into the strong Bathurst storms to its north. Just before it hit, the storm had booming loud thunder every 5 seconds from cgs hidden in the rain/hail curtain. We got hit by 90km/h swirling winds, torrential rain flash flooding,and plenty of 1-2cm hail,and lots of close bolts… It was an awesome experience. The storm pretty much started to weaken just to our east as it started to enter an unfavourable enviroment over the Blue Mountains. It suprised me at the time, just how quickly this line flattened to thundery rain areas. Hope to make a video up very soon.
I provide the photos from the storms. The first storms of the day were small and had short life spans but produced some photogenic contrasts such as this.
Late afternoon a cell developed over the Oberon Plateau region. This also produced some good contrasts. Again, it had a short life span.
Later on, the cell toward the north around the Capertee area peaked with good contrasts.
Finally the main storm which concluded the day. The northern storm that I gave chase with shelf cloud. I managed to find the hail core with hail at least to 2 cm, possibly a little larger but as the rain was so heavy, my attempt at getting out of the car to collect hail stones was futile in the conditions. In the end, the final size is not known. This image is on the Sofala Road some 5 to 10 km north of Bathurst.
Hi Michael,
I assume you chased with Michael Thompson based on location and description! Well done as well and thanks for the detailed chase report. Yes better moisture really made the storms dig into that extra CAPE! Looks like anyone that was on this particular event despite the hail not being too large still were impressed by it. The green seems to come out in all the reports!
More of the storm structure Left mover approaching. Very lightning active!
Shelf Cloud Structure of the northern storm
Left mover nearing me and merging taking place – I will be placing video online.
Lightning Video one of the bolts in the storm when the storm was weakening
The storm approaching
Kane, did you end up going out for some activity?
Posted the two videos from the 28th November event! It was great that it held down for me to finish school and still get out there in time!
Harley, thanks for posting your images. I guess the storms seem to have been covered from several perspectives. I must say that is rare and usually almost impossible in this country to get storms from behind (given the road network, and storm velocities, etc). Two chase vehicles were able to catch up with the storms in this event. Perhaps shear was modest but perhaps I am leaning to the southern storm at least becoming surface based and hitting a boundary. Once the merge occurred the storm was off on its way.
Fantastic report Michael, and great pics and video here! I was with the Michael’s for the chase, so with that write-up I don’t have anything to add except for a few pics.
First is of the storm to the north of us near Bathurst, and the next two of the shelf cloud when we got ahead of the storm near Lithgow. Enjoy!
Shelf cloud.
Panorama.
Nathan, good to see you around. Fantastic shelf cloud structure and contrast.
Thanks Jimmy! Will have to post here more often.
Hope this works, Youtube video of the chase from Forbes to Lithgow
Suggest you watch in full HD on Youtube, I have slow motioned the roofing iron sequence and it is not the only debri in the sky
I give up .. you will just have click
Roofing iron video still
Michael Thompson, that is awesome video of the debris! Great capture. I have fixed your Youtube to play in Extreme Storms. Just go to the bottom of your youtube videos, press share and then embed – you will see the script code.
Sorry it’s taken a while but here is a video of my drive through the core of this cell from Tarana up to the Great Western Highway.
This is a series of cloud to ground lightning bolts on approach to Mt Lambie, including a transformer explosion. I had fun with the intro ;-)
Extreme green tinge coming into this storm from behind. I have really struggled with the colour temp for this shot and if I had used old school slide film they would have been twice as green!
HI Jeff Brislane, I saw your footage in the MacDonalds Lithgow and it was bloody awesome! It has been an active period throughout – about time too! Neutral years are my favourites!
For those who want to see what it was like chasing this day from Oberon up to the GWH near Sunny Corner this video is speed up 2.5 times and shows the 35 minute trip in 13 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjPA0rMxCsE
Don’t worry about iframe with this one.
The lightning was incredibly frequent with very close and loud crashing thunder as the hail pelted down! The storm approach is time-lapsed and the winds, hail and lightning provide non-stop action!
Just posted a video from the Bathurst event in November as per Facebook. The hail lasted some time probably 20 minutes. Two large cores colliding in the region I was.