Despite being the 12-month anniversary of the devastating Gap storm, there was only a slight chance of Brisbane seeing anything today, so it was time to head inland again. Although I didn't go far to start with, with two nicely isolated cells: one S of Beaudesert and the other W of Boonah.

Radar at 3:54pm

This made it tricky to decide where to go but I headed to the top of Ipswich-Boonah Rd to give me the option of going after either one.

The Beaudesert cell looked gorgeous as its anvil spread across the tropopause, but both storms were dying. However, a new cell was picking up NW of the old Boonah cell. I had issues with intermittent radar access, but it seemed this new storm was heading north so instead of going W along the Warrego Hwy and risking it moving ahead of me, I headed north up the Brisbane Valley Hwy towards Esk and stopped just north of Wivenhoe Dam.

The storm was generally weak with no structural features (visible from my location) but around dusk, it became quite lightning active for a while!

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Radar at 6:30pm

Eventually it died without ever becoming severe, so it was time to choof off. Some backburning around Esk looked spectacular in the darkness. The crackle of the flames was very eerie as I took this photo!

On the way home I saw a flash to the SW... a new cell had formed west of Warwick. While it was weak and short-lived, lightning was firing every thirty seconds or so for a while. It was too far to photograph so I shot the stars instead.