Most of the activity in SE Qld recently has been mainly about weak cells that fire up for a short period before dying a hasty death. This makes it very difficult to chase as one must almost be at the right place to begin with or one will end up chasing blue sky, as I have done a few times recently.

There's nothing like a bunch of dud chases to sap your enthusiasm and make you think three times before heading out.

I was out shopping today, buried deep inside the concrete nightmare that is the modern shopping centre when a most unexpected and tremendous boom shook the building! Without my camera I headed outside and almost every boom of thunder was due to a CG (cloud-to-ground lightning strike). Unusually, there seemed to be very little sheet lightning. I lamented yet again the fact that it was daytime and virtually impossible to get a decent photo of the lightning, so I sat on the roof-top car park for a while simply enjoying the show without the pressure of photographing it, which was actually quite liberating. Close bolts produced some awesome cracks of thunder!

Eventually I went back home when a second system came through. This one had a discernable and rather gorgeous gust front, which I didn't expect considering how it looked on radar (the southern cell below):

Radar at 3:15pm

It also produced some nice bolts just inside the shelf cloud, a couple of which I managed to catch. These are facing SW from Springwood:

I again expected it to die, but it seemed to be choofing along nicely, so, attempting to stay ahead of it, I ahead NE a little to Rochedale.

Confusion then reigned as it seemed to die, then produce awesome close CGs for ten minutes, then die, rinse and repeat; as I drove to stay ahead of it, then turned around thinking it was dying, then turned around again, rinse and repeat.

Wellington Point was the first plan, then as it veered N I decided Redcliffe would be a better spot, then it seemed to die again. Around Cannon Hill at 5:15pm I finally gave up on it and decided to head home. If it was closer to nightfall, I probably would've continued, hoping for a light show, but it wasn't so I didn't.

Still, it was great to see a decent gust front after so long!