Brisbane • Sun 16 Nov 2008
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Wow, what
an awesome day! One which
produced one of the best
gustfronts I've ever seen.
Unfortunately,
one of the major papers was able
to wheel out a "Storm death,
destruction" headline. This
was also one of the most
destructive storms for at least
several years:
A
20-year old man died
while taking photos in a
drain behind the
Westfield Chermside
Shopping Centre when he
and a friend were
overwhelmed by flash
flooding
Extensive
damage occured around the
north-western suburbs of
The Gap, Albany Creek and
Ferny Grove with roofs
blown off and trees and
powerlines coming down
onto houses
Four
schools in the area were
closed the following day
Qld
Premier Anna Bligh
likened the storm damage
around The Gap to Cyclone
Larry that caused $1bn
damage in and around
Innisfail in March 2006
Damage
was caused to the Ferny
Grove train line and a
freight train was
derailed at Caboolture
Over
225,000 Brisbane homes
and businesses lost power
24
hrs later and 50,000
homes are still without
power
The
Army have been brought in
to assist in the clean-up
The
roof of the The Gap
Reservoir callapsed
compromising the quality
of the area's water
supply prompting the call
for locals to boil their
tap water (which is
difficult without power)
Experienced
Energex field staff
suggested the storm is
the worst for 25 years
UPDATE
Tue 18 Nov 2008:
The stats keep rolling in
as the severity of this
event is realised:
Kevin
Rudd visited the area
this morning to assess
the damage likening it to
a war zone
Acting
PM Julia Gillard
announced national
disaster relief
4000
houses were affected, 300
badly
85
houses have been declared unliveable
11
mobile towers were
knocked out preventing
locals from reporting
damage
500
insurance claims have
been made
RACQ
has made an initial
damage estimate of $25m
but expects that figure
to rise
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According
to the models, a surface trough
was going to make it's way north
during the day from the border
ranges up through the north of
Brisbane. My initial feeling was
that storms might start around
Warwick / Boonah as they normally
do, but that they'd propogate
more northerly through Marburg
and Esk and maybe on to
Caboolture.
The storms
certainly propogated northward
along the trough (despite the NE
steering winds), but because they
started around Kyogle (in NSW),
their northerly track took the
most severe parts of the storms
right through the Brisbane CBD.
After
watching storms firing up on the
radar around the border ranges
late morning and early arvo, we
headed out around 2pm, just
before Canungra got hammered.
We couldn't
decide whether to head down the
Pacific Mwy towards Coomera or
the Mt Lindsay Hwy towards
Beaudesert. With the steering
winds blowing to the NE, logic
told me these storms were heading
for the coast so the Pacific Mwy
would've been better. I was also
aware of the surface trough which
implied that activity would
continue northward, so the Mt
Lindsay Hwy would've been
preferable.
Well, we
barely got out of Springwood
before we got a view of the
lovely gustfront on this cell.
Surprisingly,
it started to weaken, and as far
as we could tell just by looking
at the storm, the more severe
section was heading NE towards
the coast.
Without
really knowing what was to
follow, we headed east along the
Beenleigh - Redland Bay Rd, just
to try and get a look at what
seemed to be the more severe
section to the south. The rain
caught us for a while as we tried
to outrun it, and we stopped just
near Cleveland.
We sat here
for a while without any rain to
hinder us and watched a few great
lightning bolts, but without much
movement in the sky. The cell had
lost all it's structure and I
couldn't tell what was happening.
I just assumed it was dying.
Thanks so
much to Drew for a radar update,
we learned that there was more
severe activity behind what we
could see in front of us. What we
didn't realise is that a cluster
seemed to be combining and
developing northwards along the
trough. After Drew told us what
was coming, we took off north as
quick as we could. Apparently,
the Bureau of Meteorology was
calling this a "very
dangerous storm" which was
heading straight for the CBD.
It was
frustratingly slow getting back
to the Gateway Mwy where the rain
reached us again. The sky was
turning green and lightning was
increasing as we tried to get out
in front of the storm.
Unfortunately, we had to contend
with slow traffic, toll-booths,
and sections of the highway
taking us west into the storm
before veering back north. Strong
winds were filling the air with
leaves and small branches. Thanks
to Michelle for these pictures:
 
Being
chased by the green monster is
always thrilling and was no less
so on this occasion. With my
original theory that Esk would be
a hot spot, I wondered whether
we'd also get activity
approaching from the west. This
is indeed what happened. As if it
wasn't hard enough to get out in
front of this storm as we headed
north, it was also side-swiping
us from the west. The next two
photos are also Michelle's:
The rain
blowing across the highway here
was moving incredibly fast. Shear
was supposed to be low today, but
something had changed and here it
felt like being on the edge of a
microburst. A minute later we had
white-out conditions (Michelle's
photo!):
I was
losing hope that we'd ever get
back in front of this thing, but
thankfully we kept going. Up
around Caboolture, we finally
escaped it's grasp and were able
to stop and get a decent look at
it. It turned out to have one of
the best gustfronts I've ever
seen!
   
We only had
a couple of minutes here before
it threatened to engulf us again
so we took off.
This
section of the Bruce Hwy has
little in the way of views, so we
ended up driving for longer than
I would've liked without the
chance to stop again for another
look. By the time we finally did,
the gustfront was weakening.
I only
hoped now that we'd get a decent
light show as it got dark.
 
Lightning
was landing in the distance over
a large area for quite some time,
but after finding a spot with a
reasonable view, we sat tight and
were rewarded with a couple of
great bolts.
 
The
following is 100% crop of the
previous image where the
lightning makes contact with the
ground!
Eventually,
it started raining and we
retreated to the car where I
refused to stop taking photos. I
wasn't given much in return for
my persistence, except for one
more reasonably clear CG. Most
strikes were obscured by the now
heavy rain.
All in all,
a brilliant chase day.
The next morning I had a chat with the Cage Breakfast show on Triple M about the storm.
 MP3 (2MB)
Want me to email you when I add a new storm chase report? Click here.
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