What a day for Sydney! Some pretty impressive storms and structures to be had. I missed the Hornsby cell through shear laziness or simply being too tired chased 8 days straight and wanting to get into position view point.Intercepted first cell near Campbelltown and then ended up going to Rooty Hill and then intercepted the cells coming towards Liverpool finally just wanted to get to a view point. Got some impressive bolts from there but structure was nothing special. I could see the impressive structure to the north heading towards Hornsby when it was still compact but from a southern angle.
After leaving Campbelltown, I headed to Rooty Hill. Here storms were time-lapsed and it then became apparent that storms were developing over the Wollemi. One storm intensified and tracked over the Northern Suburbs. Once this supercell progressed further east, the southwest development increased and towers exploded. Billowing crisp updrafts were a feature with several towers aligned from Horsley Park to Hoxton Park region.
After returning from this and venturing to another cell that weakened pacing from Penrith, I gradually headed for the next storm. This time I wanted a vantage point and decided not to head to the Northern Suburbs.
The cell coming from north-west of Richmond was intense and very lightning active on approach. The most intense looking structure was on the northern end of the storm.
On top of the Blacktown building car park, footage was recorded of intense lightning bolts and storm base structure for time-lapse. Harley coincidently came there as well filing lightning.
Here is a video time-lapse of the supercell
Added a time-lapse video of the supercell that went on the southern part of Campbelltown on Sunday 7th December 2014. What a week for Sydney finale!
I chased so much I can’t remember what is what but here is a link to some of the action, plus 2 stills , the first from Sunday taken near Windsor looking south at the exploding and splitting cell near Campbelltown and the other the North Western updraft of the storm on Friday arvo taken at McGraths Hill near Windsor looking north west
http://media.smh.com.au/news/nsw-news/sydneys-wild-weather-in-pictures-6069856.html
This shot is the 4pm Sunday storm which hammered St Ives and the northern beaches taken from annangrove , got 2-3 can hail there
This is an early stage of the storm which went towards Campbelltown on Sunday when it was south of penrith
Hi Nick awesome! That shot of the double anvil is excellent and it shows interesting structure of what seems to be mid-level layer banding.
Nick, do you have any time-lapse of the updrafts from your perspective of the cell near Camden/Campbelltown?
Not stable but I will see if I had any sped up video
great pix Jimmy :) … ON Sunday 7th Dec, I got under the Campbelltown, 2 on The Northern Rd at Luddenham and then on to Orchard Hills. then finally the monster that came down from Kurrajong, I met it at Londonderry and followed it via The Northern Rd, Richmond Rd, M7, M2 and Carlingford to home. It was quite violent inside it, strong winds, heavy rain and intense lightning
was the best chase day I had had for some years :)
Jimmy …. if you still have my mobile # in your phone, the one ending in 111 can you send a text or something … I lost your number when I upgraded to a new phone … thanks lots
Sunday, I elected not to chase as I had a number of chores to do following a week of storms and storm chasing.
However I decided to bring my camera along with me just in case I needed it.
While I did not specifically chase storms on Sunday, I still managed some great photos and I unexpectedly met Jimmy on the roof of the RSL car park while photographing the late afternoon storm passing over Blacktown.
I still managed to photograph the storm cell south of Penrith and I observed this cell for around 1 hour. This cell produced some impressive updrafts, pileaus caps and strong contrasts across the sky.
Following some grocery shopping at Westpoint Blacktown, I was impressed by an approaching storm from the north west so I proceeded to the rooftop car park of the nearby club. This afforded great views of the storm.
I unexpectedly met Jimmy video taping / photographing the storm. We finished up photographing the storm, filming it and observing it across the roof top car park.
The photo shows the base of the storm over Blacktown.
I managed to get these photos of lightning strikes over Blacktown and it appears one is striking very close to the crane on the Blacktown Hospital construction site.
I had problems of rain on my lens but I still managed some great photos as shown.
My favourite photo. This bolt pulsed a few times with one very bright flash.
Overall, while I did not chase, I did not miss out on the action and I came away rather pleased with these lightning photos.
I am now living at Waitara and while I was out on Sunday we had a fair amount of small hail around 3-3:30pm and lots of close lightning at home. We then copped it again a bit after 5 when their was torrential rain and high winds, brought down a lot of small branches and we had a river running down the side of the house. Much larger trees brought down nearby such as at Wahroonga I saw the next morning on the commute.
I am now living at Waitara and while I was out on Sunday we had a fair amount of small hail around 3-3:30pm and lots of close lightning at home. We then copped it again a bit after 5 when their was torrential rain and high winds, brought down a lot of small branches and we had a river running down the side of the house. Much larger trees brought down nearby such as at Wahroonga I saw the next morning on the commute.
I am now living at Waitara and while I was out on Sunday we had a fair amount of small hail around 3-3:30pm and lots of close lightning at home. We then copped it again a bit after 5 when their was torrential rain and high winds, brought down a lot of small branches and we had a river running down the side of the house. Much larger trees brought down nearby such as at Wahroonga I saw the next morning on the commute.
I am now living at Waitara and while I was out on Sunday we had a fair amount of small hail around 3-3:30pm and lots of close lightning at home. We then copped it again a bit after 5 when their was torrential rain and high winds, brought down a lot of small branches and we had a river running down the side of the house. Much larger trees brought down nearby such as at Wahroonga I saw the next morning on the commute.
I am now living at Waitara and while I was out on Sunday we had a fair amount of small hail around 3-3:30pm and lots of close lightning at home. We then copped it again a bit after 5 when their was torrential rain and high winds, brought down a lot of small branches and we had a river running down the side of the house. Much larger trees brought down nearby such as at Wahroonga I saw the next morning on the commute.