Well Wednesday 17th January was certainly one of the best days I have ever seen in NSW ever. The Models were all going crazy with the first surface trough sitting over the Upper Hunter through to the Northen Tablelands with a second upper level trough due through later that night on the south coast pushing north. In the north LI levels were excellent at -6 to -9 with Cape values of around 3500. Wind was looking good with a strong SW flow from about 800mb up. 200mb was looking exceptional with a jet of around 70 - 80 knots pushing through in the late afternoon.Gasp had TT's around the 55 - 60 mark, 500 temps were due to drop 4 degrees with the advancing upper trough later in the evening, In fact nearly every model was showing near perfect setup conditions for a significant storm outbreak across NSW and into SE QLD.

We left the drizzly strato cu of sydney around 9.30am and headed to the Hunter on the F3 headed towards Scone and the Upper Hunter.

Approximatly 10.30am we arrived into Cessnock and was greeted by some blue sky amongst the strato cumulus (sc) that had dogged us all the way up. Through the sc the sky seemed to be full of Castellanus. Upon reaching Singleton at 11am the sc had completely cleared leaving a very hazy sky full of Castellanus as far as the eye could see. It was just looking to good the anticipation of the afternoon ahead was sending shivers all over !

12pm into Maccas at Muswellbrook for a quick bite to eat and on to Scone for some Library web updates. Sat pics showed most of the cloud behind us with only castellanus to our north. Some big cells were still raging of the Newcastle coast with Static easily being picked up, and barely a cloud in the sky to the west.

1pm and we arrived into Murrurindi on the edge of the Hunter / NW slopes area. We had been watching the last line of acca/'s all the way from Scone as it hovered above the Liverpool Ranges to our West. 10 minutes later and Matt grabbed the video at the same time screaming out WOAH ..... The accas had now turned into a very nice looking Tcu. It was the first one for the day and looked to be developing into our first CB. Little did we know that we would be chasing this cloud for 3 hours !

2pm and we were in the lovely town of Quirindi on top of the "who'd have thought" lookout. Kestral was showing a W wind with 20 knot gusts at times. Suprisingly it was still moist with a reading of 34c/18 dew point. To our distant NE we could see some huge towers going up over the Armidale area, these were a no go as the distance just would have been too much for one day. The Tcu to the SW had now anvilled out and was getting bigger and bigger as we observed it. The RFB on the NW side was enormous and one of the darkest I have seen. The Jet above was pushing the Anvil out very nicely to our NE and static on the AM was intensifying. 2 minutes later and we had our First CG pulsing out of the RFB. Wohoooooooo the chase was on.

We headed out to Willows Crossing trying to stay just North of it and then West to see the back end. As we neared it the cell seemed to be dying but the RFB to the N was getting darker and bigger with every minute that passed. Soon another cell went up just to the South with some enormous crisp updraughts. Our Cell seemed to join up with the southern side cell and was now looking enormous as it started moving ENE away from us. CG's were dropping out the back and the cell now had a nice back sheared anvil to it. Decision time do we head to the South to watch the new developments or do we follow this one. No sooner had we said this than Matt Pearce called informing us that we had the first for the day and it was starting to take shape on radar (The timing of the phone call could not have been better!). Looking at the maps we realised we could chase it for about 50kms but then that was it. What the heck ! 3pm and we were on the road leading East from the New England Highway to Nundle.

We reached Wallabadah and right in front of our eyes on a dirt patch on the road a huge spin up devolped ! It was awesome looking with every feature you can see of a Tornado without being one. Lucky there were no trees or properties around as if there were damage would hav esurely occured. There was no time for photo's or video as it was over in 10 seconds !!!

3:30pm - Approx 20kms east of Nundle we noticed scud cloud rapidly developing on the northern edge as the rain/hail core thickened. Kestral was showing Outflow on the NW edge gusting up to 28knots and we were still 10kms away from the storm. Dust was being picked up by the outflow and blown straight at us. Driving further to the East catching up to it we noticed that were we had seen the scud small branches and twigs were down everywhere. The car was now being pushed around quite a bit as we edged closer. The weak gust front on the northern edge was now a constant feature and not too far from us. The rain foot of the microburst was amazing stretching km's across to the North with scud rapdily developing on the edge of it. Matt Pearce called again advising that we had the pick of them so far as this cell was going ballistic on the lightning tracker and an enormous amount of red on radar!

4pm and we reached the turn off just outside of Nundle. No sooner had we turned up the road than a car went passing flashing their lights at us. 100 metres later we came across our first damage of the microburst. Large branches off gum tree's were lying sprawled across the road. Further investigation found that most tree's had lost their large branches with some tree's just snapped in half. I had never seen such massive damage before from a microburst. The damage was all lying in one constant direction and over such a large area we knew it was a microburst that had caused the damage. Dodging branches and tree's lying on the road we pushed on tring to reach the road that heads towards Walcha to the NE trying to follow the beast. 5 kms later and we came across the dreaded "Road Closed" sign that seems to be popular around this area... BUGGER!

We realised that that was our only hope to stay with it. We headed back to the South towards Nundle as another cell had formed to the South. We reached Nundle 10 minutes later to be greeted by what could only be said an amazing sight of white lawns, white roads and tree branches down all over. Drifts were seen on the side of the road up to 10cm in height. Most stones were about 1 - 2cm in size but this size after more than 30 minutes after the storm had passed showed that some must have been alot bigger ! More Photo's and video and we headed south toward's Timor on some crappy dirt road with no views. The last cell passed to our South with a nice little guster and some rain with the odd CG. A very sus lowering was seen from this cell from a distance but we are still not sure what it was. There was no way E or NE from where we were so we had no choice but to head back towards home.

5pm - Soon we were on our way back to Murrurindi and then South to some very nice looking tcu over the Hunter. Looking back to the NE and East huge boiling masses of storms filled the Horizon with many showing massive amount of Pileus on top. I have never seen so much pileus on top of updraughts before that day !! The Tcu over the Hunter died out to nothing at which time we realised it was time for home.

And back into Strato Drizzly Cu Sydney. A Fantastic Chase watching some monster storms. All in all we did 800kms for the day, but well worth it. Many thanks to Matt Pearce for the constant Updates during the day.

Looking back at this cell Reports have now filtered in from Newspapers up around Nundle that many residents reported Hail up to 10cm in Diameter and wind gusts of around 140 to 160 km/h at the height of the storm. Although we personally think that the 10cm hail was probably mor elike 6-7cm hail. From our observation it was certainly possible for hail that size. Looking at the Wind Damage I would also quite easily estimate that Winds did probably reach the 140km/h mark but thanks to the remoteness of the area we wont know for sure