Dayboro Crawler Show

October 26, 2002

It was a hot day with a SE’ly change moving swiftly up the coast.  It was looking to arrive in Brisbane during the evening – but it was quite dry inland, so storms beforehand weren’t overly promising.  I was thinking that there would be a chance perhaps the SE’ly change, as it can be when there’s NE’lies on the coast, NW’lies inland, that when the SE’ly pushes through it actually adds even more moisture into the area.  I had to attend a charity night though north of Brisbane, so I thought this would also increase the chances of storms!  I finished work late in the afternoon, then basically got changed and headed out again.  I noticed some nice ACCAS in the sky (in amongst the overcast smoke), there was also some junky Cu, which was interesting.  I had thrown my cameras in the back of the car before I left and covered them with a sheet that I used to take my dog to the vet earlier during the day.

I got an SMS from a friend later that evening asking if I was chasing as there were storms developing on radar!  I phoned him back and asked about them…some of them would look to move around the northern suburbs of Brisbane, which was good because that was near me (I was near Dayboro).  So I decided to stay at the Funny Money night (it was for fundraising, and I wanted to show my support so I decided that I would stay for at least a bit and then as storms came closer, headed out).  I kept an eye out for lightning, but it was quite infrequent for a large part of it originally (at least that I could see).  It was quite to my surprise that it was my friend’s boyfriend’s mother who pointed out that the lightning had gotten much more frequent (geez, I must have a reputation or something…)  I slammed $20,000 on the blackjack table (after building it up from $10,000) and then lost it (doh!) but then raced out to the car and grabbed the video camera and went outside on the verandah of the club and perched my video camera to the north and watched.  It was a great show!  Some great CCs and crawlers!!!  A few nice CGs, some within a couple of kilometres gave some great loud bangs and booms, I decided that given the storms were passing just to my north that I would probably be better just where I was!  I had shelter from the rain and storms, and an uninterrupted view to the north…I wouldn’t have been able to do any better on the road.  I was annoyed when my video camera battery ran out though…I only had the small one on the video camera.  I couldn’t find the others and thought I must have left them at home charging.  (Later I found out that it had actually fallen on the floor of the car, I was not impressed!!!)  Especially since when my battery ran out, the rain cleared a bit and there were heaps more CC and crawler bolts visible!!!  One person was from Victoria (and this is the second time I’ve heard a Victorian say this, but I found it amusing at the time).  “Wow, we never get anything like this down in Victoria, I’m glad I don’t live up here it’d be too scary!”  Certainly it was probably one of the best CC and anvil crawler lightning shows that I’ve ever seen!  Too bad the video cameras don’t do it justice as you can only capture part of the crawler at a time – unlike a CG that happens virtually instantly.  Maybe if I get time I’ll do some CC/crawler animations eventually.  I didn’t end up getting home until just after midnight…I went to bed at 1am after looking at this for the following (well, later that day).  I had to be up at 6:15am to head north for more chasing…and it was certainly worth it!!!...  (Click here for that chase report)