Thunder
Downunder 2002
November 27, 2002 Back to Thunder Downunder 2002 Chase Reports
Day 8, Brisbane-Grafton Northern Rivers and the Mid North Coast looked like they would pick something up in the moist NE’ly winds feeding over it and the southerly change working its way up the coast. James and I decided to head to MB’s first and possibly test out his new pool! But when we got there, some storms were starting to develop south of Grafton so we scrapped that idea and headed down to Grafton via the Summerland Way (to test it out and see what it was like). There’s a lot of trees, but there’s also a few places where you can stop and have a look at the storms. We could see development persist to our south for a long time, when we got to Grafton there were some developing showers very close to town – they gave some very large drops! Some nice stuff was further south, but it weakened soon after. We decided to head a little further NE of Grafton towards the Pacific Hwy, but stay on the western side of the Clarence River (for now anyway). We found an old road and sat on it – we approached a very old looking wooden bridge which had about half a dozen warning signs approaching it! I mentioned to James “I don’t know if I want to cross this bridge,” to which he replied with something along the lines of “Good – I don’t either!” So we parked just before it – but curious for a closer look, I went to have a look at it and James joined me. The wooden planks were loose across the bridge! You just about fell through the thing because if you stood on one end of the plank, the opposite end would lift up!!! A little disconcerting…certainly glad we didn’t try and cross it (didn’t particularly want to retrieve my car from the river!) Although it did have two thin extra planks/wheel mark things that I am guessing is where you’re supposed to drive your car to avoid the car from falling into the water! Still…all I can say is NSW roads… Back to the storms! A nice cell had developed from one of those showers and gave a couple of rumbles of thunder before moving over us and giving some very heavy rain. It moved north and gave some nice updrafts, but unfortunately that was all it could manage!
We headed north, but it eventually moved out to sea and while it looked nice, it wasn’t anything spectacular. After getting lost on a dirt road north of Grafton, we ended up doing one big circuit and came to the same town again (with yet another rickety wooden bridge!!! This one looked a little stronger though, but we parked near it after crossing it and when other cars passed over it, the sound coming from the bridge wasn’t overly healthy!) Another weak storm developed to our SW and gave a few rumbles of thunder – but nothing really took off which was disappointing. I’m not sure why it didn’t – it looked like a good a day for potential around most of Northern Rivers, but only some stuff around Grafton developed.
On the way back towards MB’s we saw some cells develop to our SW once more giving it one last go…but it still was unable to do anything except sit there and look pretty for a little! |
