Storm Chase 24th January, 2004
Today was looking quite healthy with LI's of -5.1, not too bad shear and a strong cap. I was at Caloundra this day for a surf and didn't end up leaving until about 4:30pm. I could see a massive storm building up to my south which was infact at Coolangatta, a good 200km away. The anvil was pushing right up into the atmosphere and looked quite impressive travelling back towards Brisbane.
Just as I entered the Northern suburbs of Brisbane, the storm really took off with boiling updrafts and pileus capping. This was pushing through the anvil it had previously and looked quite spectacular.
A STW was now in force for this storm with warnings issued for damaging winds and heavy rainfall over the Gold Coast area. As I neared the Brisbane CBD, I got another view of the storm and it was very impressive with a backshearing and overshooting anvil which was very solid.
Just after 6pm the storm died however the weakening features looked quite interesting.
Later that night another explosive storm built up just on dusk and gave an awesome light show.
More pictures can be found here.
Radar