Brisbane • Wed 19 Nov 2008

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Energex had only just managed to get power on to the last few houses that needed it around The Gap after Sunday's devastating storms, when three days later Brisbane receives it's heaviest downpour in years.

The entire SE Qld region was affected by rain with over 250mm falling in some parts causing flooding, evacuations, and more power blackouts. The floods have been described as the worst since 1974, with the death of an elderly woman in Laidley and nine water rescues overnight to free people from cars stranded in swollen creeks and rivers. One man was rescued after being trapped on a picnic table in Newmarket where a woman is believed to have gone missing.

A pump failure did nothing to prevent 11 million litres of water from flooding the inner city bypass under the RNA showgrounds.

There were also evacuations in Rosewood, Marburg and Minden.

The activity seemed to be heading SE across the region. Greenbank seemed to be right on the edge of the activity so that's where I headed. Here's the radar just before I left around 8:40pm:

After virtually having the shutter open for three hours, I only saw one fork of lightning.

I could hear cloud-to-ground strikes but rain was obscuring everything. Occasionally an extremely bright flash would occur, making me brace for the huge crack, but there were ultimately no flangs... just some lovely big deep booms and rumbles of thunder.

With such bright flashes, I really expected something to land close by, and even though it didn't, I spent the entire time braced for it, which was quite draining.

At one point, the storm took an unexpected turn shifting to the E but with the northern end developing into a monster. The now huge cell continued eastwards ensuring no area of SE Qld would miss out:

I stood underneath an umbrella trying to keep the camera dry until the rain became too heavy and I retreated to the car where I continued to take more pics, hoping for the big one. Nature ignored my attempts to will the lightning onto the tree and power pole within my view. The landscape here is lit by sheet lightning:

After three hours of sheet lightning, I finally got bored and headed home. I came across some mild flooding on the Mt Lindsay Hwy, but it seems most of the flooding around Greenbank occured after I left.

After arriving home, the rain eased and louder booms of thunder became apparent so I started shooting from the back patio. Still no forks however...

Here's the 128km Brisbane radar image at the height of the downpour. This is the single most incredible radar image I've ever seen!

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