Wednesday November 8th 2006

Today looked like being the first big supercell storm day of the season, with any storms that developed having pretty serious potential to produce giant hail. I had an appointment on the Gold Coast during the morning so didn't get to check the models at all unfortunately. Originally the Gold Coast looked better than the Northern Rivers for storms, but that had changed since I previously looked at models. As it turns out, a real beast of a storm developed around Tabulum and exhibited incredible supercell structure for the Northern Rivers chasers who were watching. Meanwhile, around lunchtime I managed to get outside to get a few photos of a storm that had developed in the Gold Coast hinterland and was pushing a nice thick anvil overhead. I didn't get to watch this storm for long, so not sure where it ended up as it moved out to sea. I was free after lunch and decided to head to Springbrook National Park to kill some time waiting for storms. By the time I got there, thunder was constant from an updraft nearly overhead and from the Northern Rivers beast that was moving into the area. One quick waterfall photo and I was back in the car racing down to the Gold Coast before I got pounded by the approaching supercell. I arrived at a clearing at Merimac and watched from there. Low cloud was flying into the supercell, blocking the view, though I did get one brief glimpse of the supercell's updraft and anvil, and it looked pretty strong.

Very quickly it was getting quite dark, with massive pulsating CGs starting to appear, along with the development of several inflow bands feeding into the very dark storm base. A green tinge was very evident, and given the storms had inflow of over 50-60km/hr, I was getting extremely concerned about giant hail. I managed to get a radar update and the Brisbane doppler was showing very nice supercell structure, with a very obvious hook echo and black reflectivities in the core...and it was heading straight for me! A hail shaft was quite obvious now to my west, but looked to be slipping just N of my location. Just before the storm hit, the inflow totally died. Then torrential rain hit along with a barrage of powerful CGs. However there was no wind and no hail. The storm was rapidly collapsing. It did however produce large hail and some wind damage in suburbs just N of my location. Luckily my car was spared! Later that evening I saw some photos posted on the net of the car park at Springbrook where I had been parked earlier that afternoon, and it was covered in masses of hail. It was a lucky decision to move when I did or I may have had my car converted to a golf ball!

Full size photos available in Dave's Gallery on:
Page 69 and Page 70

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