Thunder
Downunder 2001!
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We awoke to moderate to fresh northeasterlies and a marked (8-10C) increase in the DP, it was a pleasant sight! We decided to go to the library in the moring to access the internet and assess where we wanted to be. We were there for quite a long time (over an hour), more so because we were in a pretty good position as it was so we decided against heading to Charleville. A stop between Roma and Charleville (300km apart) would have been ideal, but none of the towns in between had mobile reception, and since the sky was extremely hazy from yesterday's fires we wanted to be in an area where some one could at least tell us what was happening. We decided to grab some sandwhiches at the bakery, and head out of town to an advantage point. The road between Roma and Mitchell is lovely and clear - but we didn't really want it too clear - sitting in mid 30 temps under the scorching Sun in Queensland wasn't really on the agenda, so we found a dirt road about 30km out of town with a couple of trees and a nice view and sat there for a while. We were there for a few hours - it was quite draining, even though the trees provided some relief it was still very hot, but we did have some things to watch! First was a dust devil just down the road, it was quite cool - probably about 100m away or so! Next to grab our attention was a goanna, a rather large one too - over a metre, it quietly came down near the car for about 15mins or so, before wandering back off into the grass and bushes! And then to top that off again, another dust devil formed - exactly in the same place as the first one, this one had a free tumbleweeds flying around it too! After this, we named the road "Dust Devil Alley" - although perhaps it was just a coincidence. Although Macca pointed out some of the fields looked a little devoid of loose and light debris compared to other places, so maybe it's also the interaction with a northerly wind.
We watched Cu (small but very solid) bubble up and down during the day. We were encouraged that DPs just to our north were in the high teens, and had hoped that it would enhance something. It was very difficult to see anything, it was getting darker to our west and we had some reports of showers popping up on Charleville radar. I then got a phonecall from a friend who was doing a flight run between Brisbane and Charleville that day saying that it had just exploded near him, and he had tops to 45,000ft!!! We decided to head further west to Mitchell and take it from there, once again it was difficult that we couldn't see anything - and there wasn't much static to start off with but it quickly increased to once a second! At Mitchell we still couldn't see anything, we decided to call some one from a phone booth quickly - but we then saw a net cafe right beside the phone booth, we both looked at each other with excitedment - who woulda thunk it! A net cafe (cable too!) in the middle of nowhere. We quickly checked things and saw lots of nice cells near Charleville heading eastwards. We decided to head west, it was just a dark mass to our west - the smoke and cloud (presumably anvil) still had visibility down. We stopped just outside of Morven, as a very large storm came into view - producing MASSIVE CGs pulsing 100 times (ok, not quite!) in front of the main rain area. A deep RFB had formed just to our NW, and we were watching it as it produced very heavy rain, with very nice CCs/CGs around it. There were some nice deeeep rumbles of thunder from the storm.
We sat there for a little longer, and then we heard a faint roar. Macca and I looked at each other trying to think what the noise was and then we both simultaneously said "Oh f&&k!!!" We both realised it was a wall of wind/rain hurtling towards us. Sure enough, the trees/hills several kilometres away from us were disappearing rapidly. Scud was forming on the outer edge, but given that DPs were still relatively dry (<14/15), not much of a guster had formed! But what the guster lacked in structure made up in punch. We raced to get the cameras back in the car, and pack up the tripods. Even though it was a couple of kilometres away we still ran out of time. A wall of rain/mud/dust/debris hit us, covering the car/ourselves/inside of the car. The car was shaking from the winds, and the wind was whistling through the Cb aerial. We quickled headed back east to get ahead of it - but it was no use. The rain started off extremely heavy at first before easing to moderate-heavy. During this time, we had constant winds 60-70km/h, gusting to 80-90km/h - walls of rain were being driven across the road and the trees were going wild. It got dark quickly from the storm and we were getting blinding CGs/flashes of lightning!!! Macca pointed out a heavier wall of rain to the NE, I was like "What heavier rain!?!? This is already heavy enough!!!" But sure enough, as I peered over to the left there was an extremely thick band of rain. Of course, the road (the only road mind you), led us straight underneath it. With constant gale driven torrential rain, visibility went to zero at times, we had to virtually stop and discuss where the road was going we couldn't see!!!! Of course, we couldn't stop totally - there was no place to pull off on the side of the road (as there are no shoulders on some of the outback/country roads - and you will get bogged quite easily). Lightning was still every few seconds, with blinding flashes and bolts - it was amazing!!!!!!
It was like this for about 30 minutes before we finally drove out of the storm, but still had rain/lightning. We headed back towards Roma (100km) to get accomodation, before heading back west to watch more lightning. Unfortunately, it had died off a little by 10pm or so, and by 10:30pm we headed back to Roma. We got back into Roma 11:15pm, grabbed the sleeping bags/pillows out of the car, and both crashed without getting anything else out. We didn't have dinner until 7:30am! We even slept through an SMS (rare) we were that tired! Unfortunately though we hit something last night - we discovered what it was this morning - an echidna! An expensive echidna too, it had punctured the tire in over a dozen areas (if not more), the spines were still in the tyre though, so we were lucky - as they had stopped the air from coming out. Initially I had thought we hit a possum, I then felt very guilty about it, but now I wish we did rather than an echidna! Report by Anthony Cornelius & Andrew McDonald, all captures by Andrew McDonald |
