The 27th February saw a severe but fairly isolated storm in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia. It was a classic Hunter Valley setup. A convergence line between hot NW winds and cooler moist SE winds. This is not an unusual setup in NSW, but the Hunter and maybe to an extent western Sydney basin are one of the few places where this common convergence happens east of the ranges at low altitude. There was little activity until very late afternoon around 5pm when a relatively high based storm drifted off the Wollemi NP and tapped into the Hunter Valley heat in the Broke (Towns Name) area. The storm moved onto the convergence line and quickly became severe and very electrically active. The storm which had been moving in a Easterly direction now sped up and tracked N/NE following the convergence line. The difference along the convergence line was 35-36C (95-97F) west of the convergence and 26-27C (80-81F) east of the line. A couple radar frames as the storm moved into the extreme northern Hunter showed possible circulation. Sadly my position at Pokolbin became quickly cored in rain. The next day I did find a damage path stretching for about 1km of arm to thigh sized branches at Wards River just north of Stroud.
#stormchasing
#australia
#lightning
