Report by Matthew Smith

Storm season was expected to start off with a bang today, the first day of spring, as a low centred almost on Adelaide produced a front through the eastern states. Storms were forecast through the eastern half of NSW and into QLD. Light rain and virga showers cleared during the morning, leaving the Hunter in blue sky with patches of acca's around the place. Models indicated that the storms would form late in the afternoon, 500 temps were -22C and with DP's increasing with a NE wind, and temps forecast to about 21C, I was getting pretty excited.

Jimmy and Geoff had departed from Sydney and were making their way up towards Bulga on the northern side of the Putty Road. Around midday a small shower had glaciated above Newcastle and dropped a few large drops and some small hail. This got my hopes up for the day and after calling Jimmy, I decided to head out and meet them. Things were looking slow. Cumulus was developing, wind shear was obviously good by some of the twisting in the clouds, but the cap was too strong at this stage. We drove a little further west after meeting up, towards Jerrys Plains where we found a truck stop with great views.

We remained at the truck stop for the rest of the afternoon. Some towers were going up to our west, glaciating and producing a whispy anvil that shot down SE. This was a good sign, but we were expecting some stronger activity. Reports were comming in of storms firing in N NSW and QLD. We watched the storm slowly track SE, and were hoping more storms would form further W/NW of us, which they didn't.

It was almost as if someone flicked a switch. The weak storm we had been watching EXPLODED in minutes, with some of the strongest boiling updraughts I have seen shooting up on the NW side of the storm. It was incredible to watch as the storm intensified and took on a supercellular appearance. The storm had a backsheared anvil against a strong jet, plenty of overshoots and it moved slightly left of SE. The storm was isolated with not another cloud around it, very photogenic, and as the sun set it became a nice orange tinge, but cloud to the west infront of the setting sun prevented spectacular colours reflecting on the storm. A severe thunderstorm warning was issued for Wyong and places nearby, for large hail and damaging winds, and reports of hail large enough to damage cars were reported to the aus-wx email list.

As darkness approached lightning became visable, but the storm soon weakened as it moved out to sea. It was not very active with lightning, which was a shame, but a spectacular storm to start spring, and a great chase day!