After 3 and a half weeks working without a day off, I was fortunate enough to time a few days off with a major inland trough system. A brief analysis of this day had a jet stream of 40-45 knots almost W-E at 250, 30 knots WNW-ESE at 500 with -13C temp, and surface winds were northerly around 10 knots. A trough line was in far western NSW and into eastern SA the day before, and was expected to lie almost NNW-S through west NSW and into VIC, and slowly move east into central south NSW in the afternoon, extending back NW, and stall for a few days.

James and I had been watching this system develope over the previous few days. Late afternoon on the 29th a massive cumulus field had developed in far west NSW, with isolated storms forming in the far NW. This was a good sign that low level moisture was feeding into the area, and that hopefully a source of moisture would not be a problem tomorrow afternoon when we were in the area! That evening we attended Daniel Weatherhead's bucks night and left the following morning for Wagga Wagga at 7.45am Nov 30.

The broad trough that had been sitting over NSW the last few days moved a little further NE today. There was still plenty of moisture around as well as some good instability however there was a certain lack of "Steering winds" up high, unfortunately that meant one thing .. Pulse Storms. These Storms are great for Lightning Shots, a quick microburst and small hail but blink an eye and you may just miss it. eat chase.

Towers went up over the Blue Mountains and Wollembi around 11am so headed West to Hazelbrook where I watched the first storm of the day put out some fantastic CG's to the north. Structure wasn't too bad with a nice flanking line sitting to the NE of the storm however each new updraught that went up was pushing north , not a good thing as no roads are available. I pushed further towards Leura and managed to capture a nice low base to my north-west with a fairly solid rain curtain next to it (I believe there was Hail reported from this around Katoomba at this time). This base feature died around 20 minutes later however another weak cell had gone up to the South of me spitting out the CG here and there.

OCT 15 2003

The models had been showing that all the ingredients for the first real storm outbreak of the new season was about to occur. After watching storms firing up on the convergance line in NW NSW, SW QLD on the Tuesday, we knew that things should be ok for chasing up there the next day.

AVN had a broad area of Instability pushing through from Borken Hill spreading SE to Wagga and NE to Bourke later in the day. The convergance line ran through SW QLD from West of Cunnamulla to W of Bourke moving on slowly East during the afternoon. Although there was plenty pf moisture being dragged in from the tropics for the mid to high levels, the lower levels were a tad dry with DP's across the target area of 6 to 12c. The day had the potential for strong wind (microbursts) and possibility of hail thanks to the dryness of the air in the upper levels.

March looked set to continue its fine form of Severe Storms in NSW with Thursday March 20 looking like a great set up. Instability was widespread along a trough aligned SE to NW progged to move quickly through NE NSW throughout the afternoon. Wind Shear was looking fantastic with 20 - 30 knots in the lower levels with 50 knots in the mid levels and a jet of around 70 knots in the upper levels. Directional Shear was pretty much non Existent so the chance was there that the event could turn into a squall line later in the afternoon.

I left Sydney around 9am heading towards Gloucester. Mid level cloud was clearing towards the East as I arrived into Gloucester. With the late start to daytime heating of the surface I would have to wait to around 2pm before the first storms fired up towards The Upper Hunter.