A trough sitting over inland NSW was expected to deepen today and with the combination of abundant moisture feeding down from QLD and some decent wind shear (at last) it was looking like a good day for storms. Lifted Index was around -4 to -6 and for once there wasnt high cloud to contend with. The target area today was an area bounded by Orange, Parkes to Dubbo.

Leaving home around 10am there were patches of acca's and cu drifting across the sky in Sydney, surely a sign of things to come for the city. As I approached Bathurst at Midday an area of cu South of Bathurst had started to organise itself. The base was looking very solid however the updraughts above weren't as organised. I headed SW to Blayney and set up on a hill side to enjoy watching the clump of cu turn into some powerful updraughts and before long the first Thunderstorm of the day.

TDU - Day 1
Friday 13 December

Sydney to Moree

The day started early for Matt and Dann as both left there place for mine in St Ives. Around 11am we were all packed and ready to go . The journey today took us up the F3 through to the New England Hwy to Willolw Tree before turning off onto the highway to Gunnedah, Narrabri and Moree. Nothing to reoirt as today was a driving day getting us in place for tomorrow. However there was a sighting of a small dust devil and a Ribbit from Matt Smith.

Tomorrow we are headed towards Goondiwindi.

james

On Wednesday, October 13 2002, the biggest dust storm in over 30 years hit the eastern states of Australia, covering the landscape in a film of red dust which was whipped up by strong winds across inland Australia.

Strong northwesterly winds ahead of a brutal southwesterly wind change lifted millions of tonnes of valuable topsoil across NSW/QLD and out to the sea. The drought and lack of vegetation in inland farming areas no doubt contributed to this rare event.

From 11.30am to 4pm the dust storm moved through the Sydney Basin and Hunter Valley, reducing visibility to around 3km. West of the ranges visibility was down to 300m or less. Bushfires also contributed to the hazy sky. Roma in South Central QLD reported visibility of 100m, and Dalby in SE QLD 500m!

What a great day. A NSW Australian Severe Weather Association meeting was held at my parents place during the afternoon. We planned to have a BBQ and watch storm video's during the afternoon. There was a chance of storms during the day, so we all had one eye one the sky. After eating a great BBQ and watching some video's (including Sam Barricklows 2001 chase tape with brilliant time lapse video), some of the weaker towers we observed earlier had started to really take off. We were all standing in the middle of the street watching, and a decision was made to chase.

Erin and Mario jumped into my car, Matt Piper and Terry into Daniel Weatherhead's car, Geoff and David Croan into Jimmy's car. I lost sight of Malcolm Ninnes unfortunatly, as it was great he let us use his laptop to get a radar update before we chased.