Tuesday 31st, October 2006

HAIL STORM REPORT

From: Raymond Terrace, Written by: Grant Burgess

1445 - A storm cell near Tocal was moving E & began intensifying.

1454 - I observed explosive development on the cells SW side with it not too far off to my N & NW.

1500 - Cell was still moving E with lightning now visible to my NW.

1505 - Rain curtains were now also visible, there seemed like 2 separate ones moving in different directions. One to the NE moving E & the

other to the NW moving S.

1510 - I saw a possible wall cloud or meso structure developing to my W moving S. Spent the next 15mins trying to get the video camera to

work to observe the rapid S movement of the rain curtain, rapid cloud movements & cloud to ground (CG) lightning. I was unsuccessful

until over an hour later when of course it was too late!

1525 - I headed for cover with my car under a nearby bridge as I thought we were in the firing line. At this stage I was having trouble with my

ADSL connection as well & was unable to access any current radar images.

1537 - Due to the nature of the bridge & surrounding trees I was unable to see anything that was happening, apart from a small view to the ENE.

Heavy showers began to fall with some brief moderate winds shortly after.

1610 - Had a period of flangs which lasted only 5 - 10mins.

Event in Review

~ This storm was classified as a High Precipitation Supercell (HPSC). Althought not terribly rare in this area, it is uncommon to see them

impacting on such highly populated areas.

~ Large hail to 5cm was repoorted from this storm with the worst affected areas seeming to be around Sandgate, Newcastle Uni, Maryland,

Wallsend & Mereweather. Hail was also reported from many other areas (furtherst N I heard was Morpeth) along with flash flooding.

~ Storm chasers on this storm reported small hail in Motto Farm which is only 4km to my SW. Here in RT I observed 5.0mm of rain with

a max wind gust of 36.7km/h from the NNE at 1546.

~ The meso structure & wall cloud I saw were also observed by many other people in the area. I even heard reports of a possible funnel.

~ Next time I head for cover with the car I intend choosing a bridge with a better view.