TDU2K - Thunder Down Under 2000 DAY 5 - 19/11/00 (Please note that all times are now in QLD time) After our regular morning conversation with the Doc, it was decided that we’d stay the area again today and we headed out to the Cunnamulla airport where we had a good view in all directions. By 11am it was warm and humid with the temperature sitting on 28C and the dew point on 23C. After a short discussion, we agreed that things were likely to develop in a similar situation as the previous day so we headed west towards Eulo with plans to head further west towards Thargomindah if necessary. Unfortunately, the Paroo River at Eulo was flooded and well above the bridge, preventing all traffic from continuing any further. There wasn’t much happening at the time so we all took off our shoes and socks and played in the floodwater for about 20 minutes. With the temperature now up above 30C, the time spent in the water was very refreshing. We headed back east for a bit to find a decent lookout but we took our time as very little had developed in the area except for a few weak showers. Way off to our north we could see some BIG cells which we later learned passed over Charleville.
The chasers cool off in the flooded Paroo River near Eulo. Capture by Andrew McDonald By 2:40pm the showers had developed a little further but were still not overly impressive. We waited and watched as these cells became lightning active and by 3:45pm the cells had developed a weak but photogenic gustfront. We leap-frogged this guster several times while heading back towards Cunnamulla taking photos at each stop. We realised that cells were probably going to develop to our E and NE again later today so we left this guster and we intended to head towards St George. We made a wrong turn and it wasn’t until 20km down the road that we had realised out mistake. It wasn’t too bad - there wasn’t a huge amount happening so we kept driving - now towards Charleville and we continued to watch the line of outflow from the earlier stuff. This line wasn’t really doing anything so as soon as we saw a biggish cell off to our NNW we drove further north to get a better look at it. Before long we spotted the first CG and it was soon dropping CG’s every 20 seconds or so. The cell wasn’t all that organised but it produced some nice lightning. We could still make out the line of outflow from earlier which was now marked by a line of congesting Cu and some light showers.
Weak gustfront between Eulo and Cunnamulla. Capture by Andrew McDonald We stopped to watch the lightning from the cell to our NW shortly after 6pm and to our surprise a nice cell popped up to our SE along the line of outflow. At first it was just a mass of boiling cumulus but we kept watching it while the cell to our NW was still spitting out the odd pulsing CG. The cell to our SE soon had its entire top covered in pileus and shortly after this powerful updraft began to anvil out. This was no ordinary anvil either - an extremely thick cumuliform anvil developed before our eyes with a nice solid backshear. The precipitation under this cell was soon pushing out a chunky gustfront and some AWESOME anvil to ground CG’s. The gustfront pushed out under the updraft base and things became interesting. A wall cloud was now sitting under a massive, powerful, twisting updraft which was feeding off the outflow from the earlier cells. We watched from a distance as the wall cloud produced a few interesting lowerings and the main updraft tower continued to spit out clear air CG’s. This cell had now been going strongly for over an hour and it had just one sustained updraft but as we watched, the wall cloud weakened as a new surge of outflow hit it. This kicked off a series of events which eventually led to the demise of this cell. The old updraft weakened and a new one looked ok for a while with the base taking on a mothership type shape but this never really got going and the cell was soon totally dominated by outflow. This cell was most definitely a supercell with the visibly twisting updraft which was so persistent, the wall cloud under the updraft and also the cells deviation to the left of the mean steering flow (which was also helped by the cell riding along the outflow boundary from earlier convection).
Supercell to our SE - note the twisting updraft and thick anvil on the right. Capture by Andrew McDonald
Zoom of the cumuliform anvil. Capture by Andrew McDonald
Lowering under the main updraft. Capture by Andrew McDonald
Awesome CG from the anvil out the side of the storm to the ground. Capture by Andrew McDonald
Another Anvil-Ground CG!!! Look how far in front of the storm that hits. That is why lightning is a big threat when chasing. Capture by Andrew McDonald Our attention turned back to the cell now to our N. The sun poked out for a few minutes to illuminate the cell making for an awesome photo. After the sun disappeared we continued N through this cell which was now fairly weak. We encountered some moderate rain on the way through it and upon breaking through the other side of the cell the sun showed up again showing a very bright rainbow. A quick stop for a photo was required and as we all prepared our cameras an awesome CG ripped through the middle of the rainbow. I didn’t see it and neither did Matt but Greg and Anthony said it was one of the most awesome things they have ever seen. After recovering from the devastation of missing this we continued N towards Charleville and watched a spectacular sunset to our SW and an awesome flanking line and Cb to our SE. Eventually the constant static and the onset of darkness forced us to stop and watch the cell to the SE (the one we’d driven through earlier). Stepping out of the car was like stepping into a documentary. It was 8:15pm, there was a very lightning active cell about 40km to our SE and the noise of the frogs in the area was phenomenal. There was about 8 different frogs croaking their tunes and the extreme humidity (T 24/Td 24) made it feel like we were standing in the tropics. It was one of the most amazing moments of the chase. We were the only people for 100km and there was no sign of humanity other than a narrow bitumen road which blended into the darkness. It was a pleasure to stand there sharing that moment with 3 fantastic friends and I hope that they felt the same way as I did that night on the road between Cunnamulla and Charleville.
Very dark cell to our N lit by the late afternoon sun. Photo by Anthony Cornelius. We watched this awesome display of nature for about 30 minutes before enduring the remaining 80km drive to Charleville in extremely difficult circumstances. Kangaroos hopped onto the road in front of, behind and even in between the two cars and as well as this we drove through one very long, very deep floodway which we hit at 80km/h as it appeared out of no where. Our adventures for the day were far from over yet. We arrived in Charleville to find the Warrego River rising fast. We spoke to Chris Gribben who informed us that Charleville had had its highest November daily rainfall total of 97.4mm and the river was expected to peak above minor flood level overnight. We had a bit of trouble getting accommodation as the first two places we called had already been flooded out. We eventually found a place and we were able to rest after an extremely long day of chasing. |
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