Severe Pulse Storms Bring 
Strong Microbursts to Downs

January 21, 2003

After a successful chase the day before I was eager to get out again!  However some high cloud pushed through over the Downs and that ruined the chances.  Some CJs did develop late in the afternoon at around 5:30pm, but it was too little too late unfortunately!

The next day the high cloud all cleared!  A nice northerly was blowing, and it looked like being pretty warm.  My target area was the southern Downs and Granite Belt with some nice instability pushing through into the region, although shear once again was non-existant.  The main problem was that the moisture was a little shallow.  When I crossed the ranges I could see some hazy development off towards the SW which was a good sign! 

I went to Warwick via Freestone, I couldn’t believe how warm it was!  35/17 near Freestone, which for 500m in elevation is quite nice!

I filled up in Warwick and then headed SE towards Killarney.  Some nice storms had developed to my SSE, although they did look a little pulsey.  They had some impressive rain feet from them – indicative of some strong winds no doubt! 

Only thing is (and I have to becareful with this, because I got caught out a couple of times like this this year), I ended up in a small forest stretch (rare for the Downs!)  Of course, that was the time that a microburst intensified from the storm a few kilometres away and came across!  The winds were incredibly strong!!!  They were pushing the car across the road, and there were plenty of branches coming down off the trees hitting the car – it sounded like hail but it wasn’t! 

The winds were sweeping the rain as a fine mist across the road, and there were some trees down further along.  I finally got out of the treed section and out of the main precip – here I was amazed to see that the winds were still incredibly strong!  So strong in fact, that I wanted to get out of the car (winds were in excess of 100km/h, there was no rain and I wanted to stand in them!)  But I couldn’t open the door!!!  I had to repark the car so the door opened orthogonal to the wind and then try and open it!  When I got out of the car I had to stand in a full brace in order to withstand it!  I then had wondered if I could lean against it (being a very big person).  I went to lean against the wind and nearly got pushed back in the opposite direction!!!  It was a struggle just to get back to the car again – it was incredible!!!!!!

I stayed in front of the storm and skirted on the periphery of it – there was a very solid rain foot just to my east.  While on the edge I had gusty winds and heavy rain…and then I heard a sound I did NOT expect to hear!!!  Hail!!!  The rain had generally cleared too, it was mostly hail – only small, pea size to 1cm but I was impressed given how hot it was!

Staying in front of the storm there was very strong outflow persisting – infact the storm had become mostly outflow dominated with persistent winds of 80-100km/h.  Plenty of dust was being picked up ahead of the storm. 

This storm eventually unroofed homes in Toowoomba and brought down trees, but before that it appeared to weaken, and I was attracted to some other storms coming up from the Northern Tablelands.  I headed down to Stanthorpe, it looked navy blue to my SSE! 

The storm swiped Stanthorpe and gave some *incredibly close* CGs!  About 3 within 100m, it was amazing!!!  I honestly think one of them must have hit the road about 10-20m in front of me, because I remember seeing all of these white streamers and then a really loud CRICK!  It was uncanny!  However the storms appeared to weaken, again becoming outflow dominated in the weak shear.  The outflow managed to produce some weak storms to the NW though, perfect for me! 
 

They didn’t look much structure wise, but they put out some beautiful afternoon and sunset CGs!!!  I had about 4-5 small cells around me, and was getting an average of one close strike <1km every minute or two for about half an hour.  One was very close in particular, about 50-100m away and on video!

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I headed north to get in front of the storms to take some lightning photos and video…it was nice to watch but it was still light on the horizon so lightning photos were difficult to take.  I managed to get a couple though before they group of cells began to turn into a band of thundery rain. 

Today really showed you don’t need shear to get good storms!!