Friday December 15th

After the previous day's storm chase, Michael Bath and I discussed what the chances were for another storm chase this day, as lots of cloud was moving across NSW and likely to keep heating down a little. However even with the cloud, temps reached into the high 20's with dew points around 20C, and with this combination, the forecast sounding was suggesting CAPE values of over 3000j/kg. That is VERY unstable! Storms triggered off late due to the cloud delaying the heating, and Michael and I decided to head to Casino at 5pm to target a cell heading NE towards town. Joining us for her inaugural storm chase was Michael's daughter Katrina! With the initial target cell dying as we got to Casino, we grabbed some tea and waited NW of town, watching patiently as a cell developed to our NW. What was painful was a swarm of flying ants that filled the whole sky - they were everywhere!! Bec soon joined us and we watched as the cell moved towards our location - not bad when everything else was moving NE!! Another cell which at times looked like a well organised LP was tracking from the SW towards us as well. Soon powerful, pulsating CGs began punching through the storm quite regularly, and a shelf cloud structure began to develop.

It was unbelievable to watch how quickly this garden variety storm was evolving into a huge monster. Soon the CGs were hitting every few seconds somewhere in the sky, and pulsating so many times. The contrast was just stunning, and the structure overwhelming as a multi layered gustfront marched towards our location. It was so hard to know where to point the camera - the guster looked great to the W, another interesting storm was to our SW, and to the NW, pulsating CGs were hitting regularly just a few kilometres away! As the rain started and the CGs started hitting WAY too close we decided to jump in the car and shoot SE on the Casino - Coraki road.

As we left the sky was black and green, illuminated constantly by powerful glows of purple from the massive CGs. It was up there as one of the most powerful lightning displays I have seen in the Northern Rivers. The sky was indescribably evil looking! It was frustrating that due to the close proximity of the storm and lack of views in town, we couldn't get photos of the incredible monstrous sky bearing down on Casino, but Katrina was able to keep shooting video out the back window which was great! As we left town the whole sky had something to offer, with lightning hitting just about everywhere, even though we were ahead of the storm! We stopped a little way down the road for some photos of the violent looking sky now over Casino, but we prompted to get back in the car quickly when a huge CG hit about 200m away from us!! The storm really just collapsed out into a massive HP type storm from here, with torrential rain and constant lightning the scene surrounding our car as we drove from Coraki to McLeans Ridges. We all enjoyed the amazing flangs that hit nearby at times on the drive home, but these dried up somewhat when we set the cameras up at Michael and Katrina's place. Still, you couldn't really do much else to top off the day - it was one of the most exciting chases I have been on in a while! Given Michael’s son first chased with us on January 17th 2001 (Casino HP Supercell disaster day) and Katrina’s first chase was with today’s monster, I think they are just going to have to come on every storm chase from now on!

Full size photos available in Dave's Gallery on:
Page 73 and Page 74

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