Brisbane • Mon 14 Apr 2008
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What the?!
Sleeping peacefully one minute,
dreaming of a storm the next,
then woken by cracking thunder
the minute after that! I'm
getting so bored of saying
"well, it's been a long time
between drinks", it's just
ridiculous. What happened to the
classic Brisbane summer? Yeah
sure, we've been in an El Nino
phase for a while, but each
season seems to be getting worse
and worse (that's less and less
storms, by the way)... taking
into account, of course, the fond
memories of previous storms we've
had that tend to overshadow the
reality of any particular season.
Anyway,
enough whinging. I finally got a
storm. So unexpected it was,
however, that I was indeed
napping when thunder knocked, or
rather banged, on our door at
about 4:10pm.
During
non-storm season and quiet times,
I don't even check the forecast,
instead relying only on possibly
hearing something on radio or TV
or from a friend, but there was
narry a squeak from anyone on
this day, making it all the
more surprising.
In a rather
shocked zombie state, I hastely
grabbed my gear knowing I'd have
to move quick sticks to get ahead
of whatever monster lay outside
the front door. Booting the
computer to check the radar was
going to take too long, so I
trusted my assumption that it
would be heading N or NE.
Luckily, this assumption was
correct and I didn't end up at
the wrong end of this beast.
Well, it wasn't so much a beast,
certainly not a supercell, but it
did offer some beautiful cracks
of thunder and a lovely light
show in the evening.
Thanks
again to Drew and Michelle and
their invaluable radar updates, I
headed towards Manly. I stopped
on the way for a view of the
western edge which was now dying:
 
The eastern side continued, however, and I just
hoped it would remain
active into the evening and give
me that thing I'd been yearning
for for what seemed like forever:
a night-time lightning show. From
Wynnum facing SE, bolts were
dropping out the front but were
too quick to catch:
 
The view NW
as the sun set:
Radar
5:24pm:
Rain
continued to flow out of this
thing as the sky darkened and
intra-cloud lightning became
visible.
   
Thankfully,
it kept pumping as lightning
activity was now visible from
several cells from my E through
to my SW.
       
The moon
rising NE over Fisherman Island:
Pier at
Wynnum:
It was just
beautiful sitting at the
edge of this pier with the gentle
sound of water lapping against
the rocks and watching lightning
flickering away all around me.
But unfortunately, all good
things must come to an end... so
I photographed an aeroplane in
desperation before I called it a
night.
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