Our good friend and SSC founder Matthew Smith had a big day on Saturday. A very nice photographic storm formed about 5km away from where he was. Did I mention that he was getting married at the time...

Matt married Leanne at 3.30pm on Saturday. Fellow SSC'ers me (dann) and James along with defacto SSC'er Macca were part of the bridal party. We were having a superday when this storm blew up only a few kilometres away from where we were, having photos taken. Ironically we were without our cameras.

The storm had some pretty rapid inflow, which we observed for a good 50minutes at our location. We also saw pretty consistent rotation of the lower levels over the same period. As we left Parramatta lakes we were treated to this superb backend structure. (more here)

Well sometimes the big days are the worst to chase. Way back in December - Matt and I traversed this epic state in search of the ultimate storm chase.Friday 21st December looked nigh perfect for storms of the variety that chasers dream about. Their was ton's of moisture over NSW, very unstable atmosphere, loads of windshear in the lower levels and drier cold air in the uppers.

However after 6 hours of driving to our target area, we found ourselves rained in, only about 50km away from where a suspected tornado touched down. However in the torrential rain that slapped up around at Ranking Springs, we really couldn't get anywhere in a hurry. We busted out.

However it seems some other holiday makers didn't. As the Males family was making its way to Broken Hill they encountered some very red storms, in the late afternoon near Ivanhoe. The selection of shots was taken with a mobile phone, but gives a tremendous experience of this red storm engulfing them on a lonely NSW highway.

The last few weeks have seen a marked increased in rainfall and overall storminess across NSW. A series of surface lows and upper troughs that have dragged in a ton of moisture from the Coral Sea, as well as from the tropical monsoon over the north of Australia. Some areas of Sydney saw widespread flooding - harking back to the floody years of the late eighties and early nineties.

While we have been copping the rain, inland NSW has been copping day after day of severe storms - the above image taken yesterday by Neil evening looking south west towards Breeza and Werris Creek, at the back of the S.E.S. Headquarters in Tamworth.

Lightning Strikes on the John Hancock Building from cshimala on Vimeo.

Not an Australian storm, but an amazing little clip of a storm in Chigago. Count how many times that one building gets struck in this video...