Melbourne - Yea Storm Chase 27/1/99
Andrew McDonald I was cooking dinner on the BBQ in my backyard at about 6pm and noticed a nice Cb growing larger through a gap in the trees to my NW. My grandparents were staying for dinner so I decided I could live without a chase. I got on the roof twice to check on the local cloud development and decided that after dinner I would chase - this was starting to look really good. I watched this Cb grow until about 6:30pm when I went inside and scoffed my dinner. A quick phone call to Jane and I was gone. This cell was running at +100mm/h and steadily back building. It was a nice, huge (textbook perfect) multi-cell.
Photo taken from Kilsyth - Dane Newman.
I drove East down Greensborough Rd looking straight at this beast which was probably now only 40km away. I decided to head out Plenty Rd which would take me East and from here I could decide whether to go up the Hume Hwy or up to Yea through Kinglake. I stopped near South Morang for a couple of quick photos and another phone call to Jane, who by this stage couldn't stand the strain of watching the development on radar and from the bottom of her driveway in Bayswater, and had also decided to head after this cell towards Yea. I chose then to go up the Hume Hwy and try to get to the back of this cell. I stopped at the Kilmore/Clonbinane turn-off for some more photos and another phone call and then I headed east towards Yea. By now I was pretty much sitting under the western edge of the cluster. There wasn't much lightning visible but a fair bit of static on the radio and low cloud was getting sucked into the updraft.
Photos taken from Doncaster (Melbourne) - Chris Gribben.
Photo taken from Leopold Hill (Geelong area) 100km to the south west - Clyve Herbert.
I turned off the Hume Hwy at Broadford and headed east towards Tyaak and Strath Creek. It was beginning to get dark by now so I pulled over and took a few photos of some interesting looking lowerings under the updraft base. I drove on through Tyaak and encountered some moderate rain which only lasted about 5 minutes. As the road was so warm steam was rising from the road surface and visibility was pretty bad (about 20m) and because of the humidity the 20,000 or so local frogs decided to take a holiday across the road. There were literally thousands of them jumping all over the road (it looked a bit like hail bouncing off the road). I made my way to Yea and met up with Jane but by the time I got there the cell had died and Jane and I called it a night and headed home. I noticed later in the week that Strath Creek had had 25mm of rain in the week ended 28/1/99.
8.30pm taken from Lilydale
(Melbourne)
Photo - Jane ONeill
Updated 26th March 1999 - J ONeill