Lismore narrowly escapes round two.
Monday October 28 2007
This storm certainly looked intense as it approached my location N of Coraki, with plenty of powerful lightning bolts, however it soon became outflow dominant, pushing out into a massive gustfront (and sparing Lismore from another storm lashing). Some more storms developed as the outflow pushed north, sparking some very lightning active cells and hail close to home, but nothing as impressive looking as earlier.
Lismore gets hammered by baseballs.
Tuesday October 9 2007
With work a little busy I hadn’t paid much attention to the weather setup unfolding, and when pathetic excuse for a storm came rolling through Alstonville at around 11am I figured there mustn’t be much hope. Lucky I kept the radar open on my screen! Shortly after, a cell popped up SW of Lismore that look very organised on radar quite quickly. A weak SE change pushing through the area had triggered a beast – one which would cost millions of dollars damage to Lismore. I shot straight from work to Lismore Airport, and immediately realised I was in serious danger of getting my car smashed up, so I left within a minute of arriving. Of course, lunch time traffic in Lismore isn’t exactly light traffic, so a good 10 minutes to get across town sealed my fate. Upon reaching Clunes, massive tennis ball sized chunks of ice began falling – even before any rain had begun to fall. I clenched my teeth and waited...BANG!! There goes my car’s nice paintwork! Fortunately by continuing north I managed to stay clear of the big stuff, but was in smaller hail for at least 30 minutes. The chase wound up at Postville, watching the beat move out to sea. On the way home I ran into another hailstorm, but this one was kinder, with a deluge of mostly small hail.
Nasty but not so photogenic.
Monday October 8 2007
A very long lived supercell managed to track through Glen Innes and eventually end up all the way into the Lismore. Despite dropping a few giant hailstones along the way, there was pretty much nothing to photograph until it headed out to sea and a line of storms on the QLD border came into view. The storms up north were also pretty intense, but provided a scenic picture from down south where I was sitting.
And the storms finally return!
Sunday October 7 2007
I didn’t hold high hopes for storms today, but just on dusk, a weak high-based cell got its act together and starting pushing out some beautiful lightning. With the light getting lower and quick reflexes, I was able to grab several bolts as the storm got closer. I made the call to head inside just as the rain started to fall. Wise move, as several close bolts followed shortly after, including one very close bolt that set a tree across the hill on fire. Not bad at all!
Chasing the NSW Northern Tablelands
Friday January 12 2007
The Northern Rivers will always hold a special place as my 'home turf' when it comes to chasing. However there is something quite special about storm chasing in the districts to its west, where the varying landscapes of great mountain ranges to wide open plains brings a different, more dramatic atmosphere to chasing. With massive instability for two days along the Northern Tablelands, I decided to spend my last couple of days of my holidays chasing this amazing area. Half-hearted early afternoon convection gave way to the explosive towers of crisp, icy white clouds that chasers cross the countryside hunting for at around 4.30pm. Weak shear meant storms were mostly of the pulse variety, so it was a case of driving to the storm yourself, as it wasn't going to be coming to you. Later in the evening a cell near Tenterfield went a little crazy. Lightning galore with near constant in cloud lightning was the order from now until around 9pm, when outflow from the storms blasted through the area.
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