Not sure if you saw what I saw last night, but here in the Lower Blue Mountains we witnessed a cracking lightning display yesterday evening. As the day turned into dusk, our house was illuminated with thick blue bolts that were ripping across the sky.

All of the sydneystormchasers were out last night, but James and Matt were more committed heading my way into the Central Tablelands and chasing back to the Sydney Metro area. Above and below is a couple of their best shots, more shots from Matt and James are in their galleries.

I have always enjoyed looking at storm clouds from the air, however when I looked at some photos fellow storm chaser Andrew McDonald took from a flight last week, I was completely blown away. With strong wind shear speed and direction (not commonly seen in Australia), the ingredients were there for some pretty spectacular Supercell storms. Macca was fortunate enough to get this monster whilst on a flight from Melbourne to Brisbane on the 28th of October.

For all the pictures and a brief report head to Andrew's Gallery on bsch here

The smart people at the Mercedes Benz site in Stuttgart have turned their exhaust system into the worlds largest indoor tornado. They might justify that they are testing something to do with wind resistance or some such - but I believe they are more like me - they just like making vortices.

Regardless - I want one. Popular Science Blog

Tis the season for it. We have had an active week for storms around the Sydney basin. Though we haven't had anything particularly noteworthy (unlike our NE NSW/ SE QLD friends) their has been enough about to keep a storm nut like myself interested. 

The pics above and below are from Pingtang who runs southcoastweather. He went chasing yesterday  (Sunday 28th October 2007) through some of the lovely areas on the south west slopes / central west slopes and plains. He caught a lovely rotating LP storm near Junee - one of our favorite places.