Sunday, 26 February 2006

LOWER HUNTER STORM CHASE

From: Lower Hunter, Written by: Grant Burgess

http://raymondterrace.hunterweather.com/

Accompanied by Tim Grugeon

The day began warm & humid with storms developing in the early afternoon.

I rang Tim at around 1410 with storms growing to the SW of Cessnock. Met Tim at Hexham hungry Jacks at 1500 with an ominous looking sky to the W accompanied with several nice cloud to ground (CG) lightning strikes. We then headed S along the old Pacific Hwy (parallel to the F3 Fwy) where we ran into some light rain. The view S looked unimpressive & a radar update from Tim’s cousin confirmed this – the solid black core to the W of Cessnock died quickly & built to the N. More black chores were located to the W of Buladehlah.

We then headed back to the N through Thornton to a much more photogenic & contrasting sky. Tim spotted a possible wall-cloud off in the distance to our N. Other chasers in the Dungog area also noted a possible wall-cloud. CGs were more frequent in this area (some reasonably close) & I was able to capture several on video. Precipitation to the NNW looked much heavier & this was confirmed with Paterson (Tocal) receiving over 25mm from the storm. Shortly after the main activity headed further N over the hills so we let it go. The odd flash of lightning remained widespread for about the next hour.

Not a bad day for my first true storm chase.