Michael
Thompson's Australian Storm Chase Diary
12th January 2008, Goulburn, NSW
All photos (except video stills ) clickable for larger size
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Line of storms SE of Windellema in area with no
road access
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Dark base, but becoming outflow dominated |
One of the patterns emerging in the 2007/2008 storm season was the amount of Southern Tablelands activity. The 12th January was another such day.
I headed to Marulan and around 2pm went after a very weak storm north - there is a lovely little valley about 16 kms north of Marulan and I hoped to get something here. The storms however were just not getting on with it. Dewpoints were 21C, this was not the issue. Once convection hit about 15,000ft it took off, but between about 5000 15000ft it was struggling. I was not hard to deduce that an unhealthy dry slot was present.
I noticed better convection about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south. Fixing a compass bearing and map I calculated NE of Braidwood, much of that country is fairly wild, but the backend showed signs of backbuilding so I headed south to Bungonia and Windellema. At Windellema a nasty looking base moved overhead. Despite its looks it did not produce much.
The line however was backbuilding NW, and this area was much warmer. I headed northwest too and at a road called Painters Lane got a superb view of a developing storm west of Goulburn. The storm became very lightning active, I even managed to capture a daytime strike on reflex (yes, it pulsed so many times even I could catch it).
Rain finally started and I headed north towards Goulburn. The next dry spot was Goulburn airport, As I pulled up I had chaser convergence with PingTang from Nowra. We had only started rolling video when a CG hit a few hundred metres away. Time to depart. Through Goulburn there was minor flash flooding. Back to marulan and I hoped the storm would go on with the show, but alas too much coastal influence east of Marulan saw rapid weakening.
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| The sort of rainfree base every chaser likes to see | Lightning was very frequent with this storm |
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| Tail cloud near Goulburn airport - a CG struck close by moments later - see video below | I was hoping for more, but storm weakens at this point |
Video
stills and video link below
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A video of a close CG near Goulburn airport - if you cannot see video click here
