Friday 25th January

Woke up at 6.45am before work to see the beautiful sight of AcCas all over the sky and a summery, stormy feel to the air. Luckily I drive around for much of the day in a truck so am able to keep an eye on things - at 9am or so told my workmate for the day that I thought there would be showers/storms by 3-4pm that day. Once I offered to put beers on the bet he knew I was serious. By around lunchtime Cu and TCu was going up but hitting a cap at about 20-23000ft at a guess. This cap had been broken out E over the nearby hills and it had exploded and looked most menacing. The TCu kept trying and trying during the rest of the afternoon, and E of Melb the cap was breaking closer and closer to the city it seemed. Work fortunately finished for me at 5.15pm and I raced home to look at radar cos it was getting nice out to the NW. The updrafts around the place were very hard and solid but also a bit pulsy so was a matter of luck if I went on a chase.

Got onto the net asap to check out radar and popped onto IRC to see what had been happening and was promptly asked why the hell I was there (they know who they were <g>). Luckily my good mates in there allowed me a minute or two to check radar and to see what had pulsed out and what was just developing. I decided to head NW at about 5.45 but remembered that I had left the computer on so had to head back home. By the time I had done that a HUGE rfb had formed in front of a cell that originally was out at the AP. This was almost overhead and so it was soon obvious that I would not have to go very far. Thunder was faint at first as the updrafts reached the "lightning start" point and then a huge CG ripped down from the base (note if you chase in peak hour get to a viewing point to video somehow especially in the inner city which I am). A couple of more Cgs occured as I was driving through Abbotsford then the rain just dumped down. Had gone from nothing to torrential in a couple of mins and I turned around back towards home to try and get a CG or two as the visibility was below 300m at this point. The storm had intensified hugely by this point and I could not get ahead of it at all - I couldn't even see the CGs it was raining that hard - some huge cracks of thunder but all I could see was an occasional flash. Flash flooding to about 6" occured on some back streets of Richmond at this point which was pretty awesome. The cell moved off reasonably quickly and there were a couple of nice back end CGs. I had to go out at this point but had a look at the sky and knew that there was going to be more action around the place - nothing much occured where I was out though so no dice there. I was looking forward to tomorrow with higher temps and still good DPs with anticipation........

 

Saturday 26th January

The temp was around the 28/14 mark at 10.30am and gradually rose till it reached 33/12 at 1pm and 35/11 at 3pm. Impressive looking cell had gone up over the E ranges at this stage and I took a pic or two of that but over the CBD there was not much - just a little Cu towards Geelong that tried to get going but couldn't. The sounding showed decent LIs of -3.8 with temps of 33/14 (from memory) and 3-4 caps between the surface and 500mb or so. As the day wore on and the moisture dropped I didn't hold out much hope. Macca and I had both mentioned earlier in the day that it was likely to be like yesterday but about 2 hours later (Macca picked today almost to a tee re times of convection over the ranges and CBD). About 5pm the first showers started appearing in a line around Ballarat way and the sky looked a lot more promising to the WNW. I had discussed with Nick Sykes that the only chance Melb had was if something formed on the hills W or NW of us and headed down to the city from there - luckily this eventually occured. The main cell had gone red over Melton and though it was small was sure packing a punch and soon some other cells started to get going around and behind it. I got the video camera out at this point, which I was sure would curse any development but to my surprise that didn't occur. The first rumbles of  thunder were heard at about 6.40pm or so and there was also good development to my SW and also behind the first cell towards Melton. Temp was 35/10 before it dropped to 28/17 as the storm approached. The cells basically joined up at this point and soon I was seeing frequent CGs to my SW and getting nice and close and I got some good video of this - some awesome thunder and at this stage the visibility was a lot better than Friday.

Rain was very heavy briefly as this cell passed over - no flangs but a couple of strikes about 1km away. The rain was intense just over the Yarra in Toorak at this point and the CGs were dropping there and further S. Occasional deep booms heard and some nice long ones which you associate with anvil crawler type CC lightning. As the rain cleared slightly I could see some very nice new updrafts about 30km W of me so gradually turned my attention that way. The first cell had cleared to the E a bit but still dropped some nice back end CGs about 5km away. The new cell had become intense rapidly and a very very very black core was evident over about Flemington Racecourse or so,maybe a bit N of there. The lightning at this point wasn't that great but about 20mins later there was constant rumbling to my N from it. I only got a few drops out of this cell really but it was extremely evil looking under the core of it - this cell dropped 24mm at Preston I am led to believe and am surprised in all honesty it was that low.

The rumbling continued and the whole E sky was now quite dark with occasional strikes visible though by this time they were weakening (about 8.15 to 8.30pm). There were still some niceish updrafts about but things died down once it got dark apart from a few odd flashes from a cell near Yan Yean about 9.30 and a distant CC or so from down SE quite a distance. A great couple of days!