A dry few days produced some instability for some nice pulse cells.

Normally by late October moisture isn't as much as a problem - but that certainly hasn't been the case this season!  We had a few rather dry days (but cold upper level temperatures still gave us some instability).  The first day showed a bit of promise initially, but it just wasn't to be...however the sunset at least was pretty!

Even Dave's attempts of trying to do a storm dance didn't entice the storms (other than about 4 really nice CGs that annoyingly stopped by the time we got the video camera out!)

The next day we caught up with Randy and his partner.  The day started out nicely with early convection on the ranges - that saw a large storm develop on the Gold Coast hinterland with some fantastic updrafts (which we got some great timelapse of).

Unfortunately that eventually died, and with everything flattening out we went into NE NSW...it looked just as bad there, until one large cell went up to the south with very strong updrafts and a great backshear!  (Although upper level winds were a little weaker).

However it was just too dry and shear a little too weak for things to last...which left us with an OK sunset.

We met up with Rodney and Pato, then went back to to Rodney's new place to have a look and have some Chasers Choice for dinner!  However another line of storms riding the southerly change began to get enticingly close, and after half an hour of watching lightning from Rodney's verandah, we couldn't resist the temptation and all went down towards Grafton to have a look.  Of course, Murphy's Law dictated that the best lightning would well and truly go by the time we got down there - so after getting a few shots we gradually decided to head back home - finally getting back a little after 2:30am (which was rather awful given I had to start work at 6am!!)