Sunday 28th of May 2006

Chase Report

Sunday's forecast on GFS showed a pool of instability over the South East Queensland area, centred on Brisbane. Just west of this there was a trough, producing good convergence along a line from Boonah and further south, through to Kilcoy and north, parallel the coast. In the early afternoon towers began going up along and east of the trough line. Hail was reported in most of the cells during the afternoon, with heavy falls especially on the southside. I began my chase shortly after lunch at around 1pm leaving Redcliffe.

By the time I left, there was already a reasonable looking cell on radar near Boonah. Visually it looked quite messy down that way though. There were towers going up all along the trough line, and out to sea with strong updrafts. I decided to head north to the area of greatest shear and convergence. I left Redcliffe and headed north along the Bruce Highway, trying to spot the best cells to the west. A lot of cumulus congestus blocked my view though, so it was quite hard to tell where the best activity was. The spherics on the AM radio were going mad already. I decided to stop at Moby Vic's and pulled off the highway into a spot that gave me a good clear 180 degree view to the west. There were three main areas of activity that I could see. One to the far south, near Boonah I think, another to my west which was looking quite good and producing lightning, and another to the far north. After taking some photos and looking at the maps I decided to head west alone Johnstone Road, to the Glasshouse Mountains Highway. The views were scarce on this route unfortunately.

Heading north on the Glasshouse Mountains Highway I had a few of two cells to my west and north-west. Both had very large wispy anvils due to the high shear. I went through Glasshouse Township and old to the Old Gympie Road, then turned left onto Kilcoy-Beerwah Road to try to intercept the one that appeared to be near Kilcoy. There was one that had a better anvil to the north and looked interesting but I couldn't tell if it were just an orphaned anvil or a real decent cell. So I decided to go for the one I could easily see. At around this time I called my mum for a radar update. She told me about the Boonah cell, another that had just formed at Esk, the one I was going for at Kilcoy and another further north near Nambour. She said the Esk one looked the most intense and heading towards Caboolture, with an estimated time of arrival of about one hour. I decided to continue going to the Kilcoy one, which was now showing a nice RFB, with the option of also finding a good viewing position for the Esk cell. I was pretty certain I'd have no chance of intercepting it though.

Coming closer to Kilcoy, now on the D'Aguilar Highway, I got sight of the Esk cell and it was a beauty, much better looking visually than the Kilcoy one. It had nice pileus caps, indicating the presence of a very strong updraft. The Kilcoy cell had a good rain curtain and RFB, but the Esk one was showing nice CG's and a hail shaft. Stopping quickly for fuel in Kilcoy, I then headed down the Lake Samsonvale road towards Esk. I stopped on a hill above Lake Samsonvale, and had this amazing view.

The hailshaft was incredibly bright in the afternoon sun and there was an amazing tiny piece of rainbow popping out the side. Large clear air CG's were bursting out the side at regular intervals. A flanking line came into this cell from the north-west, stetching over my head. To the south there were large updrafts near Ipswich. The the north-east, the Kilcoy cell continued to travel east-north east, with precipitation cascade and an RFB visible. All the cells were moving quite rapidly east and after a while I realised I'd need to move to the coast to keep with them. Based on another radar report from my mum, I decided I might just be able to catch it at Caboolture. I headed back along towards Kilcoy, stopping briefly on the way to take this shot of the Kilcoy cell's hailshafts as it moved ENE.

When I arrived back in Kilcoy it was raining a bit, and this got heavier along the way back towards Caboolture. The D'Aguilar Highway was just on the southern edge of the storm, and I got quite heavy drops from that cell until I reached Woodford. Then after Woodford there was a dry area, and then I started to hit the top of the Esk cell again. Again I got heavy rain and large drops, but didn't see any hail where I was. I did however recieve cb radio reports of hail on the Bruce Highway near Caboolture. I was somewhat behind the main storm front, and as I neared Caboolture it almost seemed to split a bit, with heavy rain to my East and West as i drove through nearly clear conditions. I headed through Caboolture and Morayfield to avoid bad traffic on the Bruce Highway southbound. There were CG's everywhere, but it was raining a bit so I couldn't stop to take video or photos unfornately.

When I got to Burpengary I stopped to take some quick photos of the updrafts to the south. There were crawlers in the cell to the north of me but I didn't manage to capture any of them. Rumbles were only intermittant though. I decided at this point to head to Scarborough to watch the cell go out to sea as the sun set. I arrived at Scarborough at around 4:30pm. The 'golden hour' light had just started, with absolutely amazing colours. The cell in the bay however was featureless and grey. It was a bit disappointing, but it just hadn't gone far enough out to get good sunset structure. The sunset was amazing though and there were crawlers and CG's every couple of minutes in the cell in the bay. It wasn't often enough to catch it easily though. The thunder was quite loud and quick after the strikes, so it must have been fairly close. Just after sundown another small cell developed over Redcliffe with rain and cold winds, so I had to move under a shelter shed. I continued trying to catch some crawlers in video mode, but after a while gave up and came home for dinner. Overall it was an amazing day for the end of Autumn!