The day started off with a thundery rain band early morning. Storms were kicking up on the back end of the cloud band but were weak. Storms were forecast and all models pointed towards a stormy day from about the Illawarra northwards, depending on when the SE'ly change pushed through. Rain clearing with a trough pushing through with storms and a strong southerly chance in the evening. Perfect setup. Jet was aroud 60-70 knots, LI around -6 and a mid level jet at 500mb around 50 knots. Temps in the high 20's expected with good dew point, it was set to explode. I headed west early morning, around 9am. Singleton was my first stop looking for the clearing edge of the rain band. Before I arrived the rain and weak storms had cleared and a storm exploded down towards Bathurst.

I went to Singleton and filled up the tank, got some breakfast and went to a flat area just south of the town to watch and wait. It was 27/19 going by the kestrel with a strong northerly blowing. Storms were still firing on the ranges to the SW but looked a like they were weakening.

I moved to the lookout at Singleton and waited for about an hour. Gusty strong northerly winds were blowing, with small development occuring to my immediate W and quickly being blown overhead.

Development to the SW from earlier was creeping Northwards and was on teh edge of the ranges in the Wollemi National Park.

I headed off towards the Bulga area to get closer. It was around this time (Around midday) the first storms took off. Updraughts started to explode over my head and were quickly taken eastwards.

Just north of my location a big RFB let go and produced a big microburst and rain foot kicking out. At the same time a storm exploded over the upper Barrington Tops and looked fantastic.

Lightning was not very frequent but the bolts put out pulsated many times. The storm rapidly moved east towards cessnock, but storms were exploding to my NW and SW, so I headed to Denman.

The time it took to drive there (about 30 minutes) the storms had merged into a squall line moving eastwards along the ranges towards the Lower Hunter area. I managed to get on the back end of the line at Denman. Hail shafts and heavy rain were visible, as well as the backsheared anvil overhead.

The system moved east and I was extremely tempted to follow it. The stuff west of Scone looked too good, so I headed to Muswellbrook instead. The closer I got to the activity just north of Scone, the better it looked. As I passed through Aberdeen the big anvil stretched overhead and was very crisp with mammatus in it. Updraughts were visible kicking up on the back end and I started to get pretty excited! Huge updraughts on the back end kicking straight up to the top with a lovely backsheared anvil poking out the side, with hail shafts and heavy rain penting down in a downburst along side the main updraught, brilliant site. The only downside was a rock kicked up by a passing truck putting a big crack in the windscreen, doh!

After the storm moved over the ranges to the east I called Jimmy who was nearby and we met up at Murrarundi. Geoff and Mario were also with him and after a short while, chaser convergence! Michael Thompson pulls up next to us! After a brief talk he continued north and we headed back south hoping some stuff to the far W/SW would move our way. We stopped south of Scone and watched a nice storm to our east over the ranges.

Some huge congestus was going up to our far SE. We took off towards Singleton and on the way the storm that developed to our SE took off in a way I have never seen a storm do so. It absolutly exploded, smashing through the tropopause and overshooting, a massive knuckled backsheared anvil kicked out on the back end against the 60-70 knot jet. An absolutly magnificent site. We tried to get closer to the now brilliant looking supercell storm, but it was about 10km or so south of Newcastle and moving off the coast. One central updraught constantly exploding, awesome flanking line, and a great looking crisp anvil, with no other clouds around. Probably one of the best example of an isolated supercell in Australia you will see.

As the storm moved out to sea a deck of mid level cloud obscured the view, and as the sun set the southerly change was seen to the south with a ragged roll cloud ahead of it. As the sun set beneath the horizon the southerly moved over and bought with it gusty winds and cooler temps, the start of an East Coast Low that would develope the next day. We met Tim from Morpeth for a while before heading off and having Macca's for dinner and reflecting on the day. There was a chance of activity popping up after the change but it didnt really eventuate.

We also learned of the damage at Nelsons Bay with over 100 homes severely damaged. A weak tornado was filmed over water in the area, but I doubt it was the tornado that did cause the damage. I would suspect a microburst with severe winds as the damage did not seem to converge and indicated straight line winds.

What a day!