Great
Afternoon Supercell & Intense
Sunday was shaping up to be a good day -I had finished my exams recently and I was leaving on a 2.5 week chase in a few days time! I possibly left it a little too late to leave, but when I saw some large showers and developing storms developing around the Texas area near the NSW and QLD border I decided to head towards Warwick.
A large anvil had developed to my SW while driving down, it appeared to be a little wispy and straggly, but quite long! I proceeded along the Cunningham Hwy where a nice backsheared anvil spreading over a flanking line came into view - it was then that it started looking noticeably more substantial! Crossing the range I got caught behind several cars doing 20km/h below the speed limit - frustrating!!! But I finally got around then and headed further eastwards. The storm was moving eastwards, so I was unsure if I'd catch it before it crossed the ranges again, as it was generally tracking along the ranges. But as I was driving east I noticed that the storm was getting noticeably closer - the cell I was after had actually changed direction and was moving NE!
I headed south along Freestone Rd to witness a massive RFB! Truly massive, with an inflow band coming in from the NE feeding into the storm and dense rain and hail shafts over the area.
An interesting lowering formed under to the RFB - it wasn't a wall cloud, but a very large lowering - slightly detached from the base - testimony to the massive updrafts occurring above the RFB - I couldn't see the updrafts properly, there was a little cloud in the way and I was quite close. There were CGs striking through the RFB - it looked rather impressive!
I headed south until I was due west of it by a few kilometres, I don't normally get on the western side of storms much, but there is a small area of ranges that track along the Cunningham hwy to the south, and this was the quickest way - I then had a good plains area to track eastwards with the storm. The storm moved slightly more to the ENE again - it had some massive hailshafts!
I also saw another supercell to the south of this one - massive backshearing anvil! It came as a surprise, it had been there for a while and I was told "There is an even larger cell to your south that looks suspicious" - but only had just noticed it as my eyes were fixated on the storm I currently was watching.
This cell continually produced lowerings under the updraft and meso area - including one massive prong! It had me hurtling along to try and get closer - I don't think it was tornadic, but it's difficult to say really - this storm produced at least one tornado when it went over a town south of Boonah a couple of hours later. Click here to read the tornado report on the Brisbane & SE QLD Storm site.
You could see the rain and hail wrapping around the lowering edge - it was making things difficult to observe. CGs were quite frequent - however many were coming out of the anvil and hitting away from the main updraft/rain core area! I continued along with the storm, there were quite a few branches down in a town north of Killarney - the winds were very strong from the outflow, about 70-80km/h - the tree were bending nicely along the road, and you could see the wind whipping up the water off the road! There was a constant white-out to my east - it certainly looked to be a nasty area to be in! I got quite close and immediately pulled out when I was blinded from light drizzle and gusty winds to torrential rain and zero visibility from sheets of rain being driven across the road by ~severe winds. I pulled out and within seconds conditions were back to normal - extremely defined area of rain! I followed closely - but the meso and prong were well and truly wrapped by rain at this stage.
I decided to head back west to get towards the Cunningham Hwy. I stopped and videoed the storm from a distance - and then got some rather peculiar lowerings (tornado like, but just moist inflow on the ranges).
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