I’m in Sydney for a couple of weeks on holiday so couldn’t say no when Dann mentioned the idea of chasing Monday. GFS seemed to be all over the shop with every second run changing the forecast DP from 19 down to 15 and vice versa. Both Access models were pretty consistent with 18-20 DP's so a quick adjustment of the forecast soundings showed some pretty nice instability and good shear - enough for severe organised storms. 850 temps were stronger towards Dubbo which meant capping was a lot stronger suppressing convection and allowing energy to increase for explosive storms that evening.
Our plan was to sit just east of the dry line and wait out for convection to start. Target area was the Parkes/Dubbo/Molong triangle with the town of Yeoval chosen to base ourselves. Yeoval is quite high up with great 360 degree views and the option to move in most directions if needed. We were aiming to latch onto storms from around Yeoval and follow these north-eastwards to Gulgong/Dunnedoo where a good road network is available.
We left the Mountains mid morning and intercepted the first line of storms coming into Orange around lunchtime (The main line that went onto the coast). Nothing too flash in terms of structure however lots of strong outflow with further storms developing on the edge of the outflow as it headed east. Whilst tracker was showing a massive amount of lightning, it seemed (from our point of view) most of this was hidden by precip. We continued on from here to Yeoval where we watched convection bubble away but failing in its attempts to sustain itself.
Storms developed early afternoon towards Molong and Orange so we headed south 30kms to Cumnock to get a better view of two of them as our area was still yet to fire. There was some nice base structure with wall clouds on both storms however they moved off into the unchaseable regions of Hill End. Outflow from these storms surged northwards kicking up more towers around Hill End. These formed into storms and moved towards Ilford/Mudgee later afternoon.
Westerly winds started to push through Cumnock whilst we watched the Molong storms. We knew at that point we needed to head to Wellington as the convergence line was now on top of us. Cumulus started to re-build towards Yeoval so we headed north to Wellington and crossed to the eastern side of the convergence line. Upon arriving into Wellington we could see cumulus now towering on the convergence line just to our west.
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