Thunder
Downunder 2002
December 4, 2002 Back to Thunder Downunder 2002 Chase Reports
Day 15, Stanthorpe-Brisbane Today was our last day of TDU, I started work the next day – and what better way to finish a stormchase holiday than in your own city! And certainly it ended up being the grand finale on what was a great two week chase holiday! We quickly bought a new tyre and then headed north to Warwick and then towards SE Coast. We headed to Warrill View. Here it was 42/18 – absolutely scorching!!! Neither of us wanted to stand outside it was too hot! We sat in the car for about ten minutes both literally saying “You get out first and see what it’s like” to each other and occasionally winding down the window and poking our hands out. In the end James got out first, and I soon followed but we both jumped back in the car again (with the aircon still running nicely). We decided to eventually turn the car off and sit outside under a shelter for a bit. We were playing around with the ice in the esky to keep cool and also see how long it took to melt when it was on certain parts of the ground. Some CJs were developing along the ranges and eventually some of them turned into showers but they seemed to be struggling a bit for the time being.
We decided to head south a bit towards Aratula. Here we stopped off at a servo to get a quick bite to eat. Hmm…well, it was supposed to be quick! They took forever just to make some chips and a hamburger, I lump all cafes like this into the one term called “Mesos while you wait!” Simply because they take so long that by the time they’ve finished the storms have almost been and gone already! We were standing outside as the showers turned into storms and were producing some nice lightning and rumbles of thunder. Finally our lunch was ready (It seriously took 25-30 minutes!) and we were off…although we didn’t go that far. Just to watch the CGs, although as soon as we got the video camera out they all decided to disappear. We waited for some nice gusty outflow and rain to come over, but then we headed north back to Warrill View. The outflow had become a band of gales that were marching across the SE Coast district – not good!!! We were concerned that it would stuff up all the storm potential, but a large CJ developed on the boundary of the outflow. However it also was sitting on the seabreeze front and the intersection of the NW winds! It had hot dry (DP of 18C dry anyway) NW winds coming into moist NE winds and cooler moist SW winds behind it from the outflow.
James and I both thought of the potential and raced northwards on the Cunningham to try and get ahead of it (as we were sitting in the outflow still).
We eventually got ahead of the outflow and saw a nice little guster developing to our SE. We hopped onto the M2 and the view to our south was quite nice!
A nice guster was approaching the SW suburbs of Brisbane, so we stopped in the emergency stormchasing bay to take some footage and photos.
We then continued east and then hopped onto Beaudesert Rd from the M2.
Here was probably the most awesome site with a massive inflow band feeding in from the N and NW, and guster region to the S! It was an ABSOLUTE MONSTER!!!
The inflow was a good 20-25 knots, and everyone around us was sh&#(*ing themselves from the look on the storm. We had the radio on and listened as severe reports came flooding in. We wanted to try and remain ahead of the storm to take photos so we continued eastwards towards Sunnybank. But traffic and traffic lights held us up, and eventually the edge of the storm was coming over! The outflow was very strong with gusts often exceeding gale force, with lots of little debris flying around!
We even saw some nice rotation as the guster came over, but that wasn't associated with the main updraft area.
We ended up intercepting the storm near Underwood and got near white-out conditions from torrential rain/gales and small hail! The hail itself was an achievement given how hot it was!
We had an awesome instantaneous flang near Underwood, but after the storm was over we decided to do a damage assessment. It was quite a job getting to the SW suburbs given nearly every second set traffic lights were taken out from the storm. There was mostly tree damage but there was plenty of it! With trees across powerlines, fences, roads – you name it!
But the day wasn’t going to end there –a squall line developed to our W and was moving across. We got into position for this to see the gustfront which was quite nice also!
But like all good things…it had to come to an end. I dropped James off that afternoon and then headed back home. The first week was highlighted by storms with little shear…but it enabled us to do some sightseeing during the mornings as it was all generally in the same area. The second week was the most tiring with some awesome days and great setups! Once again it was another fantastic learning experience. It was quite sad ending the holiday, it was heaps of fun and its lovely being out in the open with the only concern being where to find the storms. All I can say is bring on TDU 2003!!! |
