First chase of the season...at last!

It's only early October but it felt like it's been an eternity and a half since the last storms!  We had some brief storms in early September, but that was like drizzle on ground that hadn't seen rain in five years...  Today was looking interesting and tricky.  A VERY strong cold pool was pushing into SE QLD with the dryline very close to the coast.  The night before, Sydney had substantial hailstorms (lots of small hail), and some of the best snowfalls of the year occured in the alps.  The problem was - would the dryline hold far enough inland and would the upper trough be strong enough to trigger stuff east of the ranges?  Ordinarily no, but the upper trough was one of the strongest I'd seen, -17 to -18 @ 500mb is very impressive for this neck of the woods, especially in October, and with -30s to the south it was certainly having some punch.  Also, some mid to upper cloud pushed through (and cleared) by early to mid morning which showed some signs of mid level moisture (hopefully meaning that stuff wouldn't evaporate too quickly).  When the sounding came out in affirmed the potential for the day (as did the growing Cumulus, albeit smaller the further you went from the coast).

I decided to target the Sunshine Coast, one of my housemates was staying with his folks up there so I met up with him after lunch and we headed out.  Initially it was frustrating - a scattering of pulsey cells, but we had a hunch that one line would become organised - and it did!  Thankfully the Sunshine Motorway was well placed for its northward shove, so the next few photos are a sequence of about an hour:

The storms cleared relatively early as the dryline shifted off the coast, so we went for a walk through Noosa National Park.  At sunset the low topped Cbs looked pretty!