Photographs by Michael Bath

Tuesday 28th November 2006 will have to go down as one of the most spectacular dates for storm chasers who love lightning - at least since 8th January 2003. Fortunately many chasers on TDU were in the Northern Rivers region during this hot afternoon and evening. Chasers Michael Bath and Rodney Wallbridge headed south along the Summerland Way to Whiporie arriving just as storms started to move off the tablelands into the Clarence Valley.

The show was amazing, initially from a lookout just south of Whiporie, before the real show took off at Lawrence. This idyllic spot provided a Clarence River foreground to the three hour show.

There were several high based, low precipitation thunderstorms cells moving towards the northeast. Microbursts occurred from a number of these with some quite dramatic pulses of outflow winds hitting.

Photographs by Michael Bath

A thunderstorm lasted for about 8 hours after forming on the Dorrigo Plateau about 10am 1st November 2006 and headed consistently NNE. It did have supercell characteristics near Grafton then struggled in lower moisture for a while before picking up about 4pm south of Casino. It again became highly organised.

Photographs by Jimmy Deguara

September 2006 in Sydney was a month of extremes: flash flood event on the 6th followed by bushfire weather and damaging gale force winds on the 24th that created extensive blackouts. This a reminder that blackouts don't only have to relate to thunderstorms! Blackouts lasted several days in some areas due to sustained wind gusts greater than 100km/h collapsing branches onto power lines. Several buildings within the several blazes fell victim to fires.

Photographs by Jimmy Deguara

USA Tornado Alley Chasing 2006

Balmy conditions made it ideal for sight seeing early on the 9th June 2006. An upper short wave approaching Montana however created an environment for supercells. The main supercell of the day developed rapidly near Hardin, southeast of Billings, Montana. A wall cloud developed but the storm congealed into a HP supercell. The supercell produced damaging winds as it roared northeast. The tornado warned storm weakened before affecting Miles City, Montana. Other supercells developed nearby but merged into a complex producing another lightning show. Hail to 5cm was measured from the original supercell.

Photographs by Jimmy Deguara

USA Tornado Alley Chasing 2006
The 3rd May 2006 may have asked for a frustrating wait but was the wait worth it! Once leaving Childress, we were on a collision course with a monster HP supercell. After a pleasant stop for a nice structured Low Precipitation (LP) supercell, the road took us onto an explosive updraft further south near Jayton, Texas.

This storm dominated spinning like a top trough sunset before outflow got the better of it. This menacing High Precipitation (HP) supercell exhibited incredible inflow band and striated structure followed by a spectacular high energy lightning show!

Photographs by Jimmy Deguara

USA Tornado Alley Chasing 2006
The 5th May 2006 was one of the highlights of our trip. We remained near our target near Midland Texas and awaited approaching convection. A storm developed near the dryline by mid-afternoon. With hailstones splattering our windscreen, the safest move was south. (I guess the road sign had a new meaning).

However, the storm simply split, exploded and became suck zone central just west of Patricia - dust sucked in from the southwest and another plume from the southeast. An incredible structure developed with wall cloud during this stage - hail streaks a gentle reminder of imminent danger to windshields.

As the RFD cut through, rotation tightened and increased and a funnel developed. Rain wrapped around the developing tornado hiding it from view.

On our southward approach to retreat from the imminent cold RFD and hailstones, a dust whirl spun up rapidly in front on the left side of the road 10 metres from our vehicle. This swirl tightened with inflow jets feeding an F0 rated multivortex tornado.

The video of this dusty tornado is awesome.

Photographs by Jimmy Deguara

USA Tornado Alley Chasing 2006
We targeted the region in SE Colorado and extreme western Oklahoma Panhandle. But we got side tracked by developing storms that I thought would move into some moisture that mixed out in the central Texas Panhandle. The outflow boundary produced strong gusts and also spun up a probable landspout near Spearman. Finally having enough, we raced towards the Oklahoma supercell with an eye on any interaction of the outflow boundary on the cells near Pampa.

We finally made it through east of Wheeler and south with and ahead of the Roberts County cell. We decided in the end to play this cell and what a barrage of lightning it let go south of Sayre. This coincided with a reorganisation of the meso or a new meso. I don't believe the outflow was always interfering with the updraft given the alignment of the cell and its motion. The late evening lightning was near Mangum and was incredible!

Photographs by Michael Bath and Kye

A weak stalling trough in the far NE of NSW on 21st April 2006 provided a late season chance for a storm chase. Surface winds shifted to southerly late morning which normally indicates the end of any chances locally, however given it not an early morning change, it provided a trigger for some storms close to the Queensland border.

The Tweed Coast and Kyogle areas fired up initially.

A brief chase commenced with observations of some cells along the Border Ranges and locally west of Kyogle. Structure was quite nice but struggling south of the border.

Storms progressed towards the Gold Coast with severe weather in parts. Kye from Mudgeeraba witnessed a barrage of hail 2 to 3cm diameter as the storm passed over.

All storms cleared out to sea by about 4.30pm.

Photographs by Michael Bath

The last third of October 2005 was a very active period for thunderstorms in the Northern Rivers region with storm chasing underway most days. One of the more spectacular days was 25th October.

Photographs by Michael Bath

Fairly localised very heavy falls of rain commenced on parts of the Northern Rivers of NSW during the late afternoon of Wednesday 18th January 2006. Rainfall totals of 300 millimetres or more accumulated during the following 24 hours with the Brunswick River and Wilsons River catchments experiencing major flooding. Thunderstorms embedded in the rain led to some locations recording around 500mm of rain in just 24-36 hours.

The Wilsons River flows into Lismore but given the western half of the catchment (Leycester Creek) received far less rain, the impact was only moderate flooding in the Lismore central business district. The river peaked at 7.85 metres at 12.30pm on Friday 20th.

Photographs by Michael Bath and Rodney Wallbridge

The weekend which included 26th November 2005 provided an opportunity for North Coast chasers to head inland for some Northwest Slopes and Plains thunderstorm action. Storms were expected to form along the Narrabri - Moree - Queensland border line, though initially they formed a little further northwest than this.

The highlight of the chase day was a line of high-based storm activity that developed west of Collarenebri towards 6pm. Although one cell eventually dominated and tracked east for nearly two hours, there were no real indications of supercellular structure. However, it did not matter - the breathtaking scenes on the plains that developed with sunset, and the phenomenal amount of pulsing CG lightning was just incredible.

See the reports for this storm outbreak by Dave Ellem and Dave Sercombe, and Michael Bath and Rodney Wallbridge.

Photographs by Michael Bath

Extreme heat and humidity in the Northern Rivers provided the fuel for a spectacular evening lightning show on 3rd January 2006. Strong capping held off most thunderstorm activity until late in the day.

Destabilisation and fairly light wind shear created an environment for high based lightning active storms persisting for several hours.

These shots were taken near Wyrallah, at Parrots Nest (south of Lismore) and at McLeans Ridges.

The close lightning bolt struck an estimated 300 metres away.