Our good friend and SSC founder Matthew Smith had a big day on Saturday. A very nice photographic storm formed about 5km away from where he was. Did I mention that he was getting married at the time...

Matt married Leanne at 3.30pm on Saturday. Fellow SSC'ers me (dann) and James along with defacto SSC'er Macca were part of the bridal party. We were having a superday when this storm blew up only a few kilometres away from where we were, having photos taken. Ironically we were without our cameras.

The storm had some pretty rapid inflow, which we observed for a good 50minutes at our location. We also saw pretty consistent rotation of the lower levels over the same period. As we left Parramatta lakes we were treated to this superb backend structure. (more here)

I managed to snap a few pics on my phone - but Jimmy managed to get a much better view of the storm from Schofields (more here)

Thanks to Ben, William and Con to scoring these ripper shots.

Whether or not this storm was a supercell is questionable. For my mind it certainly exhibited sufficient rotation for a suitable duration and was in a sheared environment that could sustain a supercell - but I have to sit on the fence - as there haven't been any reports or any real severe weather that one might associate with such a storm. Anyway - it was a lovely looking storm and a wonderful wedding present!

Well sometimes the big days are the worst to chase. Way back in December - Matt and I traversed this epic state in search of the ultimate storm chase.Friday 21st December looked nigh perfect for storms of the variety that chasers dream about. Their was ton's of moisture over NSW, very unstable atmosphere, loads of windshear in the lower levels and drier cold air in the uppers.

However after 6 hours of driving to our target area, we found ourselves rained in, only about 50km away from where a suspected tornado touched down. However in the torrential rain that slapped up around at Ranking Springs, we really couldn't get anywhere in a hurry. We busted out.

However it seems some other holiday makers didn't. As the Males family was making its way to Broken Hill they encountered some very red storms, in the late afternoon near Ivanhoe. The selection of shots was taken with a mobile phone, but gives a tremendous experience of this red storm engulfing them on a lonely NSW highway.

The last few weeks have seen a marked increased in rainfall and overall storminess across NSW. A series of surface lows and upper troughs that have dragged in a ton of moisture from the Coral Sea, as well as from the tropical monsoon over the north of Australia. Some areas of Sydney saw widespread flooding - harking back to the floody years of the late eighties and early nineties.

While we have been copping the rain, inland NSW has been copping day after day of severe storms - the above image taken yesterday by Neil evening looking south west towards Breeza and Werris Creek, at the back of the S.E.S. Headquarters in Tamworth.

Not an Australian storm, but an amazing little clip of a storm in Chigago. Count how many times that one building gets struck in this video...

I don't know if you are like me, but a day like today is when you start looking westward for some relief from the sticky weather.

I love the long humid days of late summer and early autumn, but its nice when a storm rolls through in the late afternoon to cool things off.

Today was one of those teasing days where the storms burst to life mid afternoon, and those people in Sydney could see the explosive cloud formations over the Blue Mountains, and later see the tops of the storms come stream through, blocking out the afternoon sun.

However some days the storms just stick to the mountains - like yesterday and today.

Above is a great pic of one of those explosive storms from the last few days, courtesy of our friends at blackheathweather.com

I suspect we will see a few more storms make it to the basin sometime soon...

After a quiet month, the last week has seen a return to storms around Sydney. Western Sydney copped another brutal storm than brought down trees and powerlines, leaving over 15000 people without power. This is the second big storm in a month to hit this area, after the hailstorm that left vast swathes of damage across areas from Penrith, Blacktown and Castle Hill. On the 20th storms swept across the basin. Matt was in position at Rooty Hill to capture the storms below, while the image above was sent to us from Andrew Johnson, who captured this epic landscape as the storms were moving offshore at Kurnell point.

More images here in Matt's 2008 gallery.

Look its probably not the best title for a blog, but hey - it's chrissy time and I feel good. 

The past 5 weeks in NSW, particularly the Central Coast and Ranges have phenomenal in terms of storms. While some might stupidly lament that they are storm starved - they would find it hard not be satisfied by the incessant activity throughout NSW over November and early December. WE have been bringing you many storm events from the past few weeks, but simply we just haven't been able to keep up (birth of a baby and impending holidays don't help). If you checkout our latest galleries, you will see some spectacular images from all the SSC'ers; and truthfully this is jsut the tip. Anyhoo - I just had to state for the record, that for the first time for a longtime, NSW, and the Sydney area has been the place to be for the most frequent and rewarding storms of the season thus far. The significance of that statement is that it has been a decade since that has been so. More accounts of our tremendous run will probably follow in the slower days that have to eventuate...

This week has brought some ripper days on Monday and Tuesday as already covered. I happened on a very nasty storm that formed again in the lower blue mountains 'hotspot' (okay i'll stop it).  It went from being a benign cell to a hail-bearing ripper in fifteen minutes, producing one of the best back end sunset shows I have ever seen. Above and below are some of the shots from yesterday. More here in my gallery

sydneystormchasers.com is proud to welcome our newest storm chaser. Rylan Harris was born on Sunday morning to proud parents James and Bryer.

James and Rylan (above) look forward to their first chase together. 

Not sure if you saw what I saw last night, but here in the Lower Blue Mountains we witnessed a cracking lightning display yesterday evening. As the day turned into dusk, our house was illuminated with thick blue bolts that were ripping across the sky.

All of the sydneystormchasers were out last night, but James and Matt were more committed heading my way into the Central Tablelands and chasing back to the Sydney Metro area. Above and below is a couple of their best shots, more shots from Matt and James are in their galleries.

The smart people at the Mercedes Benz site in Stuttgart have turned their exhaust system into the worlds largest indoor tornado. They might justify that they are testing something to do with wind resistance or some such - but I believe they are more like me - they just like making vortices.

Regardless - I want one. Popular Science Blog

Tis the season for it. We have had an active week for storms around the Sydney basin. Though we haven't had anything particularly noteworthy (unlike our NE NSW/ SE QLD friends) their has been enough about to keep a storm nut like myself interested. 

The pics above and below are from Pingtang who runs southcoastweather. He went chasing yesterday  (Sunday 28th October 2007) through some of the lovely areas on the south west slopes / central west slopes and plains. He caught a lovely rotating LP storm near Junee - one of our favorite places. 

If you had been watching any of the major news outlets over the past few days you would have seen some amazing footage of a tornado ripping through a power station on Friday 26th October. The tornado occured in small town called Dunoon, north of Lismore, up in the Far Northeast NSW district.  This footage was taken by Jimmy Deguara - veteran stormchaser from australiasevereweather.com

In Australia we often are asked "Do we get tornadoes here?". 

The answer is a clear yes. While we might not get the frequency nor severity of tornado like our American cousins, in Australia the tornado is a somewhat common occurrence. The bonus about Fridays event is that it is one of the first fully fledged tornadoes caught on video in Australia. Given our hobby which takes us to the far reaching areas of Australia in search of storms - its nice to actually see one of these tornadoes that we hear about or find our about later.

You can find a few galleries of Jimmy's pictures here, here, here and here. 

Jimmy's footage of the storm (provided by australiasevereweather.com) is available in wmv here. 

Ninemsn's footage in here. Article of the tornado and associated destruction is here.

Yesterday Matt phoned me about the last few eventful days of weather, and as he bid me farewell he told me to keep an eye on the sky. 

Surely enough a nice little pulse storm fired over northwestern Sydney and raced off to the Central coast where it fizzled out. it was only around for an our, but Matt snaped some very pretty pics of the storm.

It has been awhile between drinks - but this evening a couple of lonesome storms drifted down from the Central Tablelands to bring a nice lightshow to the residents of Sydney. Matt was out at usual SSC haunt near Rooty Hill to capture these great pics! For more of them - go to his gallery here.

I got a couple of vaguely atmospheric pics, but the lightning was too close - I was dinnnering at the in-law's house and was pretty much under all of these strikes.

Tommorrow (Friday 12th) looks like we might get a few storms as the south-west change pushes through!

Those of you in the northeast of this great state of NSW, you might have been seeing these mysterious, airborne objects flying over your houses over the past few days. We call them storms...

The Northern Rivers and SE Queensland has witnessed some extremely severe storms this week. SSC'ers Matt and James went northward to catch some of the action and captured the above storm as it was forming over the NSW/Queensland border.

Chasing guru, Michael Bath has again has captured the best on offer in that area over the past week - some of his best pics below.

More of his awesome work from the past few days at

http://australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/mb20071009.html