Peak Crossing • Thu 11 Dec 2008
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A great
setup today which turned into
what felt like a really good
chase!
If you know
me well, you know that I'm
reluctant to head out of town to
somewhere like Boonah too early
for fear of storms either
developing elsewhere or not
developing at all. I'm afraid
I've been on a few too many dud
chases to set out on a hope. This
is undoubtedly due to my lack of
forecasting experience, but
driving a few hundred kms for
clear skies is never fun.
Even when
storms are fully fledged and
cruising along nicely around the
border, heading out is a risk
because the storm could die at
any moment, as happened last
night.
Today
storms had already developed
nicely in NE NSW and had crossed
the border around 2:30pm. With
today's setup and no obvious sign
of this thing dying, I decided to
head for Boonah again for the
second day in a row.
Sometimes
storms can be tricky. Steering
winds indicate movement to the NE
(implying above that Beaudesert
was the ideal destination) but
sometimes the core of the storm
continually redevelops on it's
north-western edge giving it a
northerly propagation. This
seemed to be the case with the
last few radar frames before I
left, so I headed for Boonah.
Luckily, this turned out to be
the perfect spot!
Mammatus
visible around Ipswich:
Once on the
magnificent Ipswich-Boonah Rd,
the storm came into clear view
and I ended up no further than
Peak Crossing. A gustfront had
already formed and was developing
nicely in the distance. Oddly, a
rain shaft had also formed AHEAD
of the gustfront:
The tiny
rain shaft above turned into
rather a large one with what
looks to be a rain free base
(RFB) ahead of it. An RFB is
basically the base of the updraft
region for storms that are
moving. Precipitation is forced
upwards in the updraft and falls
behind it. Also, is that a tiny
wall cloud forming?
 
A wall
cloud often indicates rotation in
the updraft, which is a sign of a
supercell.
This new
rainshaft is visible on the radar
as a tiny black cell just near
Harrisville:
A panorama
shows the gustfront of the main
storm to the left with what seems
to be a new storm forming ahead
of it on the right.
The tiniest
bit of condensation is visible
above just ahead of the
rainshaft. This tiny bit of
condensation would turn into a
magnificent guster!
I was
totally fascinated to see this
new gustfront forming ahead of
the old one.
  
The radar
shows the new section actually
merging with the main cell:
 
It is one
of the greatest storm chasing
pleasures to watch one of these
approach and develop.
 
  
This
north-western edge seemed to be
weakening. Unfortunately for me,
the north-eastern edge looked to
be getting even better and was
about to go over my house in
Springwood! The roads in this
region, not to mention the
peak-hour traffic, would've
prevented me from ever making it
back in time. So instead of
driving into the side of the
storm just to hit heavy rain, I
decided to take the only road
north to try and drive alongside
it... a rather fortuitous move
considering what was happening to
NW. At Marburg, I noticed another
gustfront from a new cell:
 
Unfortunately,
despite my efforts I couldn't
ahead of it. I ended up just past
Fernvale but a cluster of cells
had merged and was dumping rain,
and a few nice CGs, all over the
place.
With
everything now moving NE and me
on the SW of it, I figured it was
time to head home. A couple of
minutes down the road and the
setting sun took a peek under the
clouds.
 
With the
fading light, flashes from the
storms were becoming more
apparent, so I thought I might
hang around in the hope it would
get dark enough to try for
lightning photos.
    
New flashes
were visible towards the NW so I
headed back up to Wivenhoe dam to
watch some crawler lightning
flicker along what seemed to be a
huge line.
With
lightning about, the buzz and
crackle from the high tension
power lines was a little
disconcerting.
   
Considering
I still don't have radar on the
road, I was rapt with how today
turned out.
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