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After a relative period of quiet on the storm front, James and I jumped at the chance to get on the road as a nice setup presented itself over the northern tablelands.

A deepening trough, combined with an solid easterly flow and warm temps meant that some big storms were going to happen somewhere in north east NSW. Apart from the lack of windshear, this looked promising, considering that the same type of easterly change (as was forecast 1 month ago) was again forecast to happen on these days.

Our target was Deepwater, north of Glen Innes, however we didn't make it. A large complex blew up just east of Guyra, and sustained our interest most of the afternoon. Out of the mist we could only faintly make out the solid looking updrafts. After about 15 minutes we witnessed some of the biggest updrafts we have ever seen explode and burst through the mid-upper level cloud that had been capping the storm for the past hour. This complex was firing on the procession of the easterly change, and as we forecast these updrafts started marching toward us - moving the other (i.e. westward - dominating the horizon). For over 90 minutes the storms kept bursting up with nearly every updraft draped in thick pileus. We realised the storms were exploding overhead, and as soon as we could head north, we were surrounded by hail and drenching storm. Near Glen Innes we were blessed with a gap in the storms and we witness to the tremendous contrast of the sky. The white of the crisp tops of an anvil, the firey red of an updraft and the deep blue of torrential precipitation.

That evening we got a small little lightshow. Infrequent sheet lightning with the occasional brilliant crawler made for a playful, yet frustrating evening.

The next day (13th January) was one of those tense days where we saw lots of potential energry in the sky, but things weren't quite right to bring the day together. After playing a few solid hours of cricket at Glen Innes we skipped around the town, chasing some pulsey storms. After witnessing a massive storm shrouded in mist (i.e no photos) fly up the coast in a non chaseable area, we headed back Sydney way hoping to score something on the trip back.

Luckily storms started forming right on dusk, to which we were entertained further with some nice strikes.