Beaudesert-Brisbane Beast!

November 20, 2005

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We’ve been getting quite a few tricky days where it’s been difficult to know where to head.  I was divided between going into the Downs or staying in SE QLD…but mid-late morning convection on the ranges convinced me to stay put and head towards Boonah.  Instability was shown as around -3 on the sounding, but with masses of billowing updrafts it was quite obvious that the LIs were much higher and that the increase in DPs along the coast during the morning was not just a seabreeze influence, rather much deeper than that!

I could hardly leave my driveway without taking a dozen or so photos to the southeast.  Normally seeing things to the southeast is a concern, but on a day of little shear (some but not much), I thought things might move pretty much due northerly and maybe if something really got going it might move slightly NNW.  

So I headed towards Boonah, and then down towards Maroon to get up front and close with the line.  The first thing I noticed was that the outflow was extending ahead of the storm, I guess that meant that stuff would have to develop to its north (which it did later on!)  The meantime, it was off to get some heavy rain and CGs, thinking that it should still be fairly pulsy…well, it was – pulse severe!  I got a nice burst of 1-2cm hail and strong winds (reaching gale force at times with branches coming down), down near the town of Maroon!  Click here for video of the hail (1mb).

I decided to head back out and get in front of the line, I had chaser convergence with Ben Quinn just south of Boonah too!  We stopped just near Boonah to admire some of the green turbulence above us…some of the most incredible angry looking sky I’ve seen!!

I decided to head towards Kalbar, to get in front of the cell that was veering more N/NW, but getting in front of it, it didn’t look that great.  In fact, another cell to my east was looking much better to the NE of Boonah and was moving northwards.  Only, it propogated strongly to the east before going N/NW!  Head on straight for Brisbane!

I shot up the Cunningham to try and get in front of it, but the outflow of the storm was pushing ahead at 70-80km/h and that helped it propagate faster.  I did get a few glimpses of the guster on the Cunningham and then on the Ipswich Mwy before it moved overhead.  

But then I saw a column of dust just to the right of the motorway, there was a spinup underneath the gustfront – a gustnado!!!  It’s hard to make it out on video though, but the rotation above it is fairly evident.  Soon after, I videoed a small funnel while stopped in a “storm jam” on the M2/M5 interchange.  I didn’t want to get caught in the storm, but traffic was banking up from people trying to flee/get out of the way as this beast moved through.  The only clear roads were into it!  So I decided to try and punch the eastern side (weakest), and come from behind it – no hail but some strong winds and torrential rain!

Now the hard decision…do I go north towards Caboolture (traffic etc, but less risky), or try and come up behind it from inland to avoid traffic and also take the chance that it might continue veering a little more N/NW.  I decided to head up the Brisbane Valley Hwy – I thought if nothing else I’ll see nice updrafts, which I did!!!  

Along with some great hailshafts near Fernvale where I had chaser convergence with Margy and Mark.  I told them I was going to try and shoot up the highway and get in front of it (with 100km to work with, I thought there was a shot), although it was moving fairly quickly especially with new development.  

The updrafts though were just incredible!!!  Unfortunately between Esk and Toogoolawah is quite treed in, but you could make out a rounded feature in the trees…when it did clear though it seemed more elongated but it had weak rotation still evident and I’m pretty sure it was a dissipating wallcloud sitting the western edge under the line.  

We continued to push northwards underneath the massive updrafts…we seemed to be ok, but then it was a case of do we stay put and get smashed (ran out of roads!)  Or head east to get in front of it…well, I decided to head east but I think either way the result was inevitable.

I kinda thought we might be in trouble when off to the left, I saw half a tree come down!  Then the branches started flying through the air, as winds (gusting to 110-120km/h) came flying through, whipping the rain up into an eerie mist!  I only videoed during parts of it as it was too dangerous to video otherwise, a few cars did pull over but we just wanted to try and find a place away from trees!  It wasn’t to be, and we were doing some dodging of very large branches over the road.  Fortunately, the area is frequented by severe storms so most of the weaker trees are “weeded out” so to speak.  But driving back through there later there were still quite a few trees down and I saw some iron twisted in a fence too possibly from an old shed!  Click here for some video of the line (3mb)

One of the scariest things though was an extremely close CG (click here for the video (600kb)) which basically hit between myself and Margie’s car!  My ear popped with it, while Margie’s right side of her arm was really sore afterwards!!  I’m not sure what caused that, other than perhaps because of all the rain, the cars may have been indirectly hit by some of the charge.  Near Kilcoy, we got out of the storm and took shelter to watch some great crawler and CG combinations strike around the town (one took the power out!)  Before the storm finally weakened and collapsed into a rain area.  What a day still though!!!