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

 

After months of sitting and hoping for a storm to move through the basin, today the combination of a trough and stronger mid level winds helped ease our pain.

 

All afternoon storms had been brewing over the Blue Mountains and to be honest I started to think that things were not going to make it off the mountains. How wrong I was.

 

At around 2pm I noticed Anvils streaming across the sky and the sky darkening to the west. I decided to head out to a lookout at Dural and on the way was pleasantly surprised by the Mammatus in the anvil overhead.

 

---

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. A trough was sitting over NE NSW with +15 Dp's and temperatures in the North West Slopes and Plains expected to reach the 26c mark. 500 temps were around -17c, 850 temps at 12c. Wind shear was looking very nice with surface winds gusting up to 20 knots from the NE, backing to a 30 knot northerly at 900, north-westerly of 30 knots at 800, west-north-wester of 30 knots at 700, west-south-wester of 35 knots at 500 and finally a jet of 80 knots at 300. There was a lot of moisture in the mid levels during the morning however this was to move east of the area after lunch providing some very nice mid level dryness, perfect for isolated storms. Lifted Indicies were progged to reach -7 in the area during the afternoon.

I had been going through my chase gear the day before making sure that everything was in working order, video camera, camera, phones and data cables charged and packed. Maps, tripods, food, water packed. Everything was looking good except for my laptop. There was an odd smell coming from where the charger connects to the laptop. All I could do was pack it into the car and hope it wouldnt fail me whilst chasing.