Hiddenvale Hailstorm

February 13, 2003

After I was working in the afternoon, but it didn’t worry me too much as we had just moved to a new location recently much closer to the ranges!  I watched as CJs developed along the ranges from late morning into the afternoon. 

The first storm of the day developed to the NW towards Crows Next.  Another group of CJs began to get organised to my SW and eventually developed into a small storm. 

It looked quite well organised with a nice RFB beside a solid rain shaft.  It was moving towards the NE relatively slowly, but it was slowly intensifying!

While working I kept looking to the SW and taking video, the RFB was very dark and rippled with a nice updraft above it!  Beside it was a solid rainshaft and foot – it took on whitish appearance too which got me excited about the prospect of hail!

As it got closer I could see the rain/hail moving ahead of the storm quite rapidly – I was getting very excited seeing the rain and hail shafts cascade and move across the valley! 

However the rainshafts were weakening which got me worried, but I was hoping that the RFB had something to give just as nice as it former brothers.

The cell came over as drizzle initially and I was a bit disappointed…even more so when it stopped!  What an anti-climax – so I thought… 

Very soon I saw something bounce on the ground…and another, and another!  Then it began to hail with 1cm stones only, before bucketing down with hail and torrential rain and gusty winds to 70-80km/h!!!  It was quite awesome to watch, I ended up walking around the verandahs as the winds changed not to get wet.  But towards the end some of the stones were getting up to 2cm or so the winds swung around to the north.  My feet and ankles were being pelted with hail, so much so I actually had a few small cuts from it!!!

As soon as it finished I raced back to the study to finish my work, just in time for some more storms to develop to my south, but they were going to go to my east. 

I headed out towards Warrill View and got some nice CGs, but by the time I got to it the storm had weakened substantially and there was just very heavy rain – still a great day!