Spectacular Gustfront & Great 
Lightning Show in the Downs!

March 12, 2000

The remnants of Sub-Tropical Cyclone Donald left some colder air in the mid levels, and helped assist in a moist northerly surface flow over the past few days.  SE QLD had already had five thunderdays, with the Downs scoring a few as well – a surface heat trough existed inland aiding in a trigger. 

I had uni from 9am to 4pm in Toowoomba – the day started warm and muggy in Brisbane, I left it was 24/21 at my home at 7am.  However the change in weather between Brisbane and Toowoomba is often quite remarkable, as I climbed the range the temperature quickly fell to 20C and I was forced to crawl up the range at around 20-30km/h due to thick fog.  The fog was thick through much of the east side of Toowoomba before breaking up to mizzle (misty drizzle) towards uni.  At around 11am, things had cleared up though and it was in the mid 20’s, some moderate CU about but nothing significant quite yet.  However at around 1-2pm things became quite difference, with some very nice CJ’s and TCU starting to pop up!  I was tempted to leave uni early, but I decided that I really should attend class – even if it did mean I’d be tuck in a lecture room for 2hrs with no windows (argh!)

It was a long and painful wait, and my mind drifted elsewhere, and when the lecture ended I quickly became excited to hear the first people who went outside complain it was raining!  Raining was an understatement – it was pissing down!  And as I was walking along the verandahs towards the carpark I heard several nice flangs!  It was fantastic!  I waited on the western edge of uni near the main carpark and took some video.  The lightning/thunder had decreased but there were still some very nice loud rumbles and the winds were quite strong – sweeping the rain across the roads, and it was cool watching trees sway in the winds!

It was about ten minutes before the storm had moved on – I was desperately trying to work out the movement of the storms – I thought they were going NE, at least that was my guess and what I was going to base my decisions on!  I saw some brilliant updrafts to the east and SE, and to the north was mighty tempting as well.  But what caught my attention, was a strong, yet at this stage slightly smallish cell to my SW.  However roadworks made my shortcut a little difficult, as I passed the dreaded “Prepare to stop sign” I thought to myself “Stop me and I’ll run you over” – alas, I was stopped, and was told there’d be a 5min wait – I was probably better off waiting, but I decided to head down on the New England Hwy and cut across through Wymeera or Drayton and get onto the Gore Hwy towards Pittsworth.  I got slightly disoriented though, but soon found my way onto the Gore Hwy! 

I headed towards Pittsworth, I had worked out that the storms were definitely going NE now!  The storm to my SW had now started to form a line of cells, they seemed to pulse a little, but all had very heavy rainshafts! 

Their outflow had joined together though and it was producing a nice little guster that spread across most of the horizon!  I decided to get a little closer, and then pulled off the road at the next hill to take proper footage and photos.  I was about 10km outside of Pittsworth.

The guster was getting nicer every minute!  It was one of the quickest evolving gusters that I had ever seen!  It was deepening fairly rapidly, and was getting very nice banding and curvature around it.  I couldn’t believe my eyes – the guster was evolving into one of the most awesome shelf clouds I had ever witnessed in my life!  It was just incredible!!!
 

I took some more footage of it closer to Toowoomba, and tried to keep up with it but I was unable to!  Eventually it overtook me, and the storm moved over – this thunderstorm’s bark was much worse than its bite though! 

Some light winds and heavy rain was all that accompanied this cell!  I let it pass over (didn’t take long), and I just found a little advantage point and admired the Downs under some golden sunlit showers to the west that had formed – a very peaceful and beautiful sight.

I headed back into Toowoomba and got the key to my cabin (I stay in Toowoomba each Monday night), and then went out to go and get some dinner at around 6:30pm.  I came back, and sat down and watched some TV for about 10mins or so just to relax, 4hrs driving, and 7hrs uni was quite exhausting, especially when half the driving was for chasing.  However I decided to have a look to see if there was any lightning left over.  I had a narrow, but very good view to the NW, I looked on the balcony and was greeted with a flash of lightning...and another, and another – and another!  There were flashes of lightning ever few seconds!!!  I phoned Dr Pearce who informed me of a line of storms stretching from Dalby to Crows Nest.  I quickly headed out towards Oakey.  The lightning was gradually picking up intensity – eventually the entire northern sky was lit up by lightning, 1-2 flashes a second!!!  I took a little video while in the car, but not too much – purely because there were about over a dozen different cells all up, but each individual cell only produced lightning say every 10 seconds or so, and given that I have much better lightning shows on tape, decided to only record some for record keeping purposes only.

However I did regret the decision to an extent, several nice CG’s occurred throughout the duration of the two hour lightning show, and there were some spectacular crawlers – one in particular actually sent a central bolt in the middle of the sky and then branched out in two directions left and right of me!  I was talking to Dr Pearce on the phone who was deafened by a chorus of profanities of excitement because of this.  I sat just to the north of Oakey for a while, I lost track of time, it drizzled and there was some on and off light rain, but not enough to warrant to get back in the car.

After lightning decreased and dropped off dramatically, I headed off back to Toowoomba.  It was a nice drive back – except for when I was following a cattle truck and a cow sh@t on my car!!!  Meanwhile the wipers got a good workout trying to clear the windscreen. 

But all up – it was a fantastic end to a great a day!  The sweet smell of hay in the warm humid air, while watching lighting; it was truly bliss and relaxing – and it will be sad to see that go for another six months as winter starts to encroach.