The camera gear was all packed away for the winter, capturing video of the 2007/08 season had begun, however the big guy upstairs had other plans.

Severe storms developed over the southwest of Sydney during the afternoon and proceeded to move north throughout the afternoon evening. The structure from north of Sydney was nothing short of spectaculur - towering crisp updrafts lit up by a setting autumn sun made for some great photo's.

More photos can be found here 

Storms formed late in the morning over the Tablelands before some large bases emerged over the Hornsby area in the warm humid conditions. The southerly seemed to hit this line around 1pm and the storms really took off in size and structure.

Unfortunately yours truly was participating in a soccer game so could not get any photos until half time. By this time the line had developed well and truly to the north of Sydney towards Gosford. Photo is from Hornsby Heights looking towards the Gosford cell. Note the nice lean to the cumulus towers indicating good vertical wind shear.

More images here 

Over 40,000 people lost power today as severe storms swept through Sydney. The storms formed due to a combination of an upper trough passing overhead with a surface Southerly change moving up the coast. With ample moisture still in the air, it didn't take long before severe storm warnings were put out by the BOM for flash flooding across Sydney, Illawarra and the Hunter. More reports and photos by clicking 'read more' below.

I went for a small local chase during my lunchbreak today. Started at a great vantage point on Galston Rd watching the rapid development to my south. Initially it was mostly dark bases moving steadily north towards me until just after Midday when one cell towards Baulkham Hills started to form a Shelf cloud on it's north flank. Over the next 20 minutes the shelf cloud went from a few fingers prodding out the front to a full blown thick layered shelf cloud. Quite a rapid transition no doubt helped by the strong outflow winds combined with the southerly forcing lifting as it moved north. Photo Sequence is below.

Eventually the shelf cloud moved nearly overhead. Time for me to move north as the first few cool gusts from the south rustled the tree leaves above. One more shot taken looking south.

I headed up the Old Northern Road to Wisemans Ferry where I watched as new development went up ahead of the main - now weaking a little - line. There was no chance for me to chase it north unless I wanted to drive the windy roads with no views to St Albans, so I called it a day (or long lunch?) and headed back home. Picture below of the storm approaching Wisemans Ferry followed by a shot of the new developing base in front.

Had a brief successful chase this afternoon starting at Campbelltown and nearly doing a loop down to Picton/Appin/Bulli/Waterfall/Holsworthy and then back up to Galston.

Watched the earlier cells near wollongong go nuts from near Campbelltown. The NW flanking line started to get its act together with some crisp powerful updrafts however the bases were still quite high at this point. I opted for the coastal show at the start knowing the lightning and features were much better.

Those cells had some very intense, frequent lightning for quite a while until it started to gust out and the focus turned to the new cells developing on the earlier storms outflow.

Chaser convergence with Michael T was a nice surprise and as Michael said, we both agreed that the cells to the west were starting to become nice and organised. After dodging a few close flangs I headed up Heathcote rd to Holsworthy where a strong rippled base had developed and was ready to let loose a barrage of cg's, rain, hail and wind.

The wind was intense in bursts with branches coming down around my location. Hail was small however the lightning was frequent and constantly pounding all around. Heavy rain gave some flash flooding and it wasn't long before I was stopped by a tree across the road (I have a feeling its the same tree as your photo MT - I would have been around 6 cars back. I managed to get around it by driving onto the footpath behind a 4wd). After getting past this blockage I managed a awesome view of the back end structure a I headed north on the M7 back home.

Before turning onto Galston Rd I stopped at the Dural lookout and watched the beginning of the big cell over NW Sydney around 7pm (Rune - this is the view of the cell when the first strikes were coming out)

Although I managed to miss last Sunday's storms across Sydney I am happy to advise I was back home today to witness my first storm for 2008, and a good one at that.

I met Dann at his place and headed out towards Lithgow hoping to catch the earlier action over the Central Tablelands before heading back into the Sydney basin late afternoon for what we were both anticipating should be big. The earlier storms were terrible to be honest .. I was expecting a little more structure at the start but the combination of no wind shear, moist uppers and no cap meant that things got cluttered very quickly with no structure on show. After a quick u-turn we were heading back to the Bells and watched as the first large storm developed in front of us.

Whilst mesmerised by the dark menacing base rapidly sucking in scud cloud from all directions towards Bilpin we couldnt help but notice the intense updrafts going up to our distant south towards Wollongong/Appin. We toyed with the idea they were forming on the southerly however models had been hinting it was due later than what we were seeing.

We watched the Bilpin storm go from a black menacing base with wall cloud to a rain covered mess quicker than a lap around Mt Tomah Botanic Garden (which is not a great place for viewing storms). Our focus turned to the south with crisp updrafts now filling the southern sky. This storm looked intense and seemed to be heading north compared to the other eastward bound storms to our west.

We moved position to Windsor and enjoyed the outflow push out 80km/h winds around us. Lightning was intense with the most active part being the north eastern flank. Above us and to our east we noticed a small base that tripled in size as the outflow hit it. Within 20 minutes the small base was now enormous and dropping a barrage of lightning around us.

We picked up 1cm hail, strong winds that brought down branches and flash flooding on parts of Wisemans Ferry Road around Maroota however as soon as it had developed it had moved on towards the Central Coast leaving carnage behind.

Checkout more images from today in Matt's, James' and Dann's galleries.

For nearly the whole of November storms have been a big feature of the NSW landscape. Living in Sydney you would have thought otherwise. The reason - no upper level winds to push the storms off the mountains into Sydney. Today the upper level winds returned and as a result storms moved across the basin.

I managed to capture a number of storms around my area this afternoon. Photos can be found in my 2007 photo gallery with a couple sneak peaks below.

For all the pictures and a brief report head to Andrew's Gallery on bsch here

Today was day one of what is looking to be an extended period of precipitation over parts of the state. The ingredients - A deepening trough over NSW with ample mid and upper level moisture feeding in from the Tropics and surface moisture streaming in from the Tasman Sea. Why not throw in a slow moving cold pool over west NSW as well. Stir ingredients well for 24 hours and wallah ... Rain and storms over NSW!

I chased the area around Mt Lambie this afternoon and managed to pick up a nice little storm passing through. A nice Shelf Cloud at the start turned into heavy rain and a barrage of CG's including one strike right in front of me. See all the pictures in my Gallery

This would be the second time the ssc'ers have been out together on a chase for a few years. Certainly far surpassed my expectations I had when I got out of bed at 5am this morning.

Picked up Dann at 6am and headed straight towards the Oberon Road turn off at Hartley. The sunrise was just too good to resist thanks to the leading edge of the ECL cloud band moving north over us. A few snaps later and the clear calm conditions changed as we got in the car and enetered Oberon.

Around 5 - 10cm of snow had covered the town and the sky had turned grey. Light rain and sleet was falling in town so we knew we had to get somewhere higher. We headed down the old Abercrombie Road from Oberon thinking that this was the way to Shooters Hill (Note to self - take a map when chasing). Around 10 minutes into the journey, Dann politely informed me that we were in fact on the wrong road. Hindsight would show that this accidental move was probably the best of the day.

We had come too far to turn around and with sleet still falling we looked for a road that seemed to head to higher ground. Thats when we saw the turn off to Mozart. Memories of my visit to Mozarts house in a snow filled Vienna came flooding back. I sarcastically thought to myself "Surely it has to be a sign".

Meet up with Matt Smith, Andrew Newton and Cheryl later on and continued exploring the wonderful snowy sights and roads this forest had to offer.

I remember a time - a time where Sydney used to get rain, and a time where Sydney used to get storms. Not the dry windy types that have frequented us lately but real storms that made you seek cover.

After what has felt like years for us living in northern Sydney, the storm drought finally broke this afternoon.

Months of sitting and hoping for a storm to move through the basin finally paid off as the combination of a trough and stronger mid level winds helped ease our pain.

29 December Report

There is always something about your first chase of the season. The research before the big day is intense. You don't want to start the 2006/07 season with poor storms, or even worse, a bust! Hours are spent searching the various computer models looking for signs of a good storm set up. Thankfully all the signs were looking good.

Check out my chase report for September 27