Thursday December 14th

Despite looking marginal initially, the latest model runs and the look of the sky made me think severe storms were quite possible in the Northern Rivers. Around 2pm I headed off down south in the hope of catching a suspicious looking storm that was heading NNE towards Grafton on radar. On its initial track I thought it may go through Maclean, so that was the target. Driving south was painful, watching massive updrafts explode up and push out into a huge backsheared anvil…it seemed to take forever to get down Maclean! Just before emerging from the horrible treed in stretch south of Woodburn, I got an SMS warning mentioning destructive winds and large hail. I was not surprised when coming out of the trees to see a large, crisp anvil to the SW! I tracked south to a slightly clearer spot to watch. The cell was moving strongly left and so looked to pass well to my west, which was disappointing as there are hills in the way blocking the view. Still, I could make out the mesocyclone of a very intense thunderstorm. No shortage of powerful pulsating CGs at this spot, and the inflow was very strong!

Time to head north to Woodburn as the storm was in unchaseable territory. Another painful 20 mins drive with no views and out I came into the more open, chaseable plains around Woodburn/Coraki/Casino! The cell had obviously weakened though, with the base lifting up and it looking a little moisture starved. The sky also appeared drier and the nice moist inflow into the storm had subsided somewhat. It still appeared to be rotating away and was giving some lovely CGs so I kept heading NW.

Eventually I stopped just NW of Coraki. The storm began to develop some lovely photogenic structure at this point. I kept edging NW every few minutes as I didn't want to get caught out leaving too late and cop large hail on my car I had spent the morning polishing!! The view at the next spot was amazing - really smooth, sculptured type structure, with a nice curved updraft region and very obvious rotation. It was all too close though - needed a wider angle lens! Just before the outflow hit I shot NW to Casino, getting blasted by RFD winds during the drive. I then drove into another cell over Casino which gave absolutely torrential rain. Eventually I was back on the Bruxner Hwy heading for Lismore in the hope of meeting up with the cell again. Boy did it have lovely back end structure! Massive corkscrew updraft boiling upwards…just lovely! As I drove back under near Lismore I copped VERY heavy rain, but the storm was weakening out and the rest of the chase was mostly featureless.

Full size photos available in Dave's Gallery on:
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