28th March 2010, Borderline severe storm, Southern
Highlands, NSW
Click any image for much larger size
The day was marginal. For once moisture
close to the coast was not an issue, but lack of any decent wind shear
in the low to mid levels was always going to limit storm potential.
This picture was taken in the main street of Robertson, right on the
edge of the Illawarra escarpment. The rock hard anvil was from a pulse
about 30 mins earlier about 30 kilometres off the left side
of the picture.
I
traveled westwards along the edge of a weak outflow boundary. Weak, but
enough to kick up another strong pulse near Sutton Forest. The surprise
was the hail, although small it was quite extensive. See the
video for hail.
The storm started to become
outflow dominated again.
At this location (Miitagong) on the
southern highlands a decision point for both chaser and storm is
reached. The land drops 400-500m in altitude over the next
few kilomtres to the NE. These repeating outflow
based pop and burst storms often die here, if they last they can become
nasty as they tap into more heat of the SW Sydney basin (but too often
less moisture)............