Well it's that time of year again. Last day of March today and while it's possible there might be a few more storms in April, I think the storm season is pretty much over (hope I am wrong). I thought it would be good to have a discussion of the better storm days of this year. Ideally I am after days with large hail, damaging winds and/or tornadoes.

For what it's worth, the storm season in SE Qld was an absolute shocker. There was one day (15th of October, 2011) where I thought there was great potential for supercells with large hail but that day didn't quite produce with a more linear system moving through SE Qld (though hail to 4-5cm was still recorded near Brisbane I believe). Further north had more descrete supercells and Hervey Bay was hit by quite significant damaging winds.

13th of November also saw a severe storm in SE Qld-

This storm caused extensive damage to one house, I suspect it was a case of straight-line winds but I know there was some discussion of a possible tornado. Not sure what the conclusion was there.

Best storm day I think would have to be Christmas day in Melbourne.

Over to you, I am sure there are plenty of days to discuss!

Dreadful storm season for SE Qld. At least in 2010/2011 we had those incredible rain events and the storm season ended with a big bang with hailstorms every week in late April/May. And to think that we were all predicting an excellent storms season back in August/September.

NSW/Victoria had a great storm season though! The Christmas Day storms come to mind among others.

Great idea for a thread!

Only really followed the Victorian season myself, apart from a passing glance at a few days in other states, so my comments on best days will be skewed.

Personally, didn't get to chase as much as I would have liked this season due to more work commitments than other years and mother nature not co-operating by landing events on wknds.

The few times I did get out were pretty enjoyable though.

First was a doozy of a storm back on October 22nd that ripped through my area (Nth Central Vic), hail, damaging winds and very photogenic...











As I said before hail and damaging winds were a feature, hail and leaf litter everywhere after the storm moved through. Was worse further up the road but I didn't get out for pics due to the road conditions...




Apart from that the only other days that are worth mentioned from my own point of view were Xmas Eve when Victoria got a lightshow for the ages. I just happened to be down the coast holidaying at the time so was in a perfect spot for photos!...





Missed all the action Xmas Day, undoubtedly the most severe day of the year. Why of why did it have to be Xmas day though?!?! I think Brad was probably the only chaser who managed to get a pass and go out for a look. Hopefully he will add to thread. But was certainly an incredible day, couldn't believe my eyes when during Xmas lunch I bought up BoM on my phone and saw "Tornado Warning for Vic"!

The only other day I managed to get out and see a decent storm was the last real storm day here in Vic, back on March 15th, when a nice line made it's way across from the west...



Only other day that stands out for Victoria was November 9th when there was some pretty severe storms that went through the state. Was one of the few days where there was some genuinely clear air to work with at the right time of day and storms just exploded. Didn't see much of it first hand myself due to it being a weekday, but there was some great photos and reports to come out of the day.

Overall an average year in terms of quantity of storms, but with some amazingly severe days thrown in. Personally, I'm looking fwd to an end to the La Nina pattern, as I think we get much better "clear air" type storms when we're not in a La Nina, but then we also struggle for moisture.

Nevertheless, can't wait for next season, shattered this one is over, but will make do with following the US season on YouTube in the meantime.

Nice photos Meso, yes, 9th of November, 2011 was certainly an impressive day in Victoria. Here is the radar loop from that day-
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR022-melbourne/2011-11-09-00/2011-11-09-10

Storm that moved through Albury which I believed produced a tornado-
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR493-yarrawonga/2011-11-09-00/2011-11-09-03

The day before that there was the Bombala tornado-
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR402-canberra/2011-11-08-00/2011-11-08-10

Definetly Christmas day for Melbourne :), also September 27-29th ish.

TheAnt, can you refresh my memory on what happened around September 27-29th? The Melbourne morning sounding on the 28th shows a solid elevated mixed layer-
http://soundings.bsch.au.com/skew-t.html...ndow=on&hodo=on
What a change 12 hours later!-
http://soundings.bsch.au.com/skew-t.html...ndow=on&hodo=on
Obviously a very strong system.

http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/ubbthreads.php/topics/1013485/4 Here was the topic when it started, cant find a loop yet.

For southern parts of NE NSW (south of Coffs/Barraba, east of Gunnedah, and north of Port/Murrurundi), overall the storm season has been kind of below average for this area (though tending closer to average away from the coast). It has certainly not been terrible but there's room for improvement.

The storm season was decent through Spring, especially between mid October and mid November. However, after a heavy rain event in late November, the storm season became more subdued during December and January (especially so along the coast). There was a revival of storm activity during February but March has been absolutely woeful.
Hoping that April might spring up a few surprises.

The highlight of the season was the mid November storm outbreak:
Part One of the mid November storm outbreak across the MNC, NT & NWS&P on the Namoi 512km Composite radar:
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR691-namoi/2011-11-12-00/2011-11-13-18
Including a storm (with a possible hook echo) that BOM singled-out as being a 'particularly severe storm', south of Curlewis around 3:30pm on the Namoi 64km radar:
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR694-namoi/2011-11-13-00/2011-11-13-09
Part Two of the mid November storm outbreak across the region on the Namoi 512km Composite radar:
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR691-namoi/2011-11-15-00/2011-11-17-16

Honourable mentions too for:
August 30th storms were a late winter surprise, not overly severe, but impressive for August (Namoi 512km), across areas of the NE:
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR691-namoi/2011-08-30-00/2011-08-30-10
October 25th/26th was good outbreak of storms across parts of the NE (Namoi 512km):
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR691-namoi/2011-10-25-00/2011-10-26-12
October 30th was a good stormy day as well (Namoi 512km):
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR691-namoi/2011-10-29-22/2011-10-30-15
February 20th was probably the highlight of a subdued summer (Namoi 512km):
http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/IDR691-namoi/2012-02-20-00/2012-02-20-20

There were quite a number of other stormy days of course, but I think these were probably the pick of the season.

Hi Guys,

Im not going to say what we didnt get and winge but post up a few of my favorites for the season.

First of all the 15th of October fantastic squall line type system as MC mentioned. Super low LCL's, condensation lowerings, lots of vorticity along the front as expected with this type of system producing vortices in the gustfront. I managed to capture a very well organized lowered vortex something I will surely never forget.





Gustfront Formation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv642QEDf2s

In at Second is a superbly sculpted Anticyclonic cell on the 11th of December, which managed to last quite a long time for a right mover.



Here is another ripper from the most recent setup on February 13th. Cell started off in Beaudesert and made its way up through the usual storm highway to rip through Jimboomba and logan areas etc. Had some crazy greenage, thats not Photoshop straight off the camera.

Perhaps I was a bit too emotive with my previous post but I still would say the frequency and severity of storms in SE Qld (and NE NSW) was below average. For example, I am unaware of any reports of hail larger than 5 cm (please correct me if I am wrong). On the otherhand, Victoria has done particularly well this season as noted above.

I might as well add the Townsville tornado to the list on the 20th of March. Certainly deserves to be mentioned.

I did not come across any mention of hail larger than 5cm either in this half of NE NSW, during a search of newspapers from this area (Macleay, Port, Taree, Nambucca, Coffs, Armidale, Guyra, Walcha, Tamworth & Namoi Valley newspapers).

Unfortunately, this article only refers to 'massive hail' falling, rather than specifying a size or size range. A conservative guess would be that the 'massive hail' was between 3 to 5cm:
http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/story/2011/01/21/nambucca-valley-cyclone/

A storm chaser from Sydney (Ben) on October 30th, reported and photographed hailstones 4 to 5cm in diameter at Coolongolook on the far southern MNC: http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/ubbthreads.php/topics/1025172/8
(the brief newspaper mention: http://www.portnews.com.au/news/local/news/general/weather-warning-issued/2340566.aspx)

There were a few mentions about 'golf ball sized hail' (about 4.3cm diameter, so probably anything from 3.5 to 5cm, depending on the person):
http://www.manningrivertimes.com.au/news...er/2358170.aspx
http://www.nvi.com.au/articles/n17-keepit.html (Security camera footage of hail at Lake Keepit: http://au.prime7.yahoo.com/n3/news/a/-/national/11729172/still-repairing-damage-video/)
http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/story/2012/02/13/storm-devastates-banana-farms/

Also copious amounts of small hail falling, including the following:
http://www.macleayargus.com.au/news/loca...ow/2252458.aspx
http://www.macleayargus.com.au/news/local/news/general/hail-hits-before-storm-season/2278740.aspx
(similar reports from Port, Coffs and Tamworth)

I do wonder sometimes what goes unreported around here, especially when it comes to hail (large hail is often very localised, and usually melts overnight). This area has among the highest annual average number of thunderdays outside of the tropics: http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/thunder-lightning/index.jsp
Aside from the coastal strip and regional towns/centres inland, the area is sparsely populated. Especially when compared to the far NE corner of NSW and SE QLD. A decent swathe of the region is national park and the Armidale/Walcha area is primarily sheep/cattle grazing land.

Chasers do not usually venture into the MNC, NT & NWS&P for a number of good reasons. The distance involved to come from Sydney or far NENSW and Brisbane, makes a day of chasing tiring and expensive (petrol, possible accommodation). The road network of the NT and MNC is not good for storm chasing (probably more conducive to 'intercepting/corepunching' rather than the usual 'following/observing'), and aside from the river valleys/floodplains the MNC is heavily forested (poor views and dangerous in strong storms). Usually a good storm day on the NR and even SE QLD, is also a good storm day elsewhere in NE NSW, so there's no real need to risk travelling down here from further north when the potential is basically as good (or better) nearer to yourself.

i haven't chased as far this season (have only chased south coast/south west slopes/central tablelands/hunter areas - no interstate chasing) and haven't been watching models like a hawk either, but have generally been out and about whenever there has been a chance of a storm within a few hours drive. Keeping that in mind i think it's been a reasonable season for these areas. I haven't seen too much structure or any large hail but i have seen some great lightning, particularly towards the end of the season. I would have filmed the 2 best CG's i have recorded in 6 years of chasing, unfortunately the second one got affected by rolling shutter making it look a bit annoying.

There should be more storms today so here's hoping the season has one last hurrah

Well, it was a substantially quieter chase season this year compared to the extremely hectic 2010/2011 season for us - The comparison:
30 Chase Days (Severe Storms occured)2010/2011 vs 11 Chase Days 2011/2012 (every day a rotating storm).

However, while the quantity wasn't there - the quality was ridiculous. Here just some pics of various days I have on hand.
Lake Boga - Late September (Microburst whiteout, crazy CG barrage at close quarters and severe hail to about golfball size).


Near Bendigo and Lake Corop - Mid October (Incredible 6 inch drifts of hail 2-3cm in diameter).



A major outbreak event - 9th November (and some severe on the 8th) with two areas of supercells - in western Vic discrete SCs (around 5) formed and moved eastwards over southern vic and Melbourne, while in Southeast NSW crazy SRH drew us up near Urana - Cricket balls occurred east of Gunnedah and several storms tried the tornado game. I have better shots, but a massive backlog in photos due to work.


Towards the end of november - how about supercells near Nyngan moving down through towards Parkes (8 cm recorded hail, large volumes above 5cm).


Oh and after all the fun:


Then in the two weeks leading up to christmas we had a couple of nice events, storms west of Melbourne...and then the ridiculous Chingapook- Hay day a week before. I've only processed the two shots - but full on Beaver Tails, at least one Tornado and many attempts on just the one cell we chased (around 4- 5 formed on the boundary in 50knots of DLS + nice CAPE) - we chased that cell for four hours to east of Swan Hill...then dropped it to hop on the Haymaker - a monolithic mothership HP near Hay (see brads shots over the plains). I am really really wanting to get onto processing these photos now that cricket season is over - will post when I get round to it.




I had the heartache of missing Christmas day and watching nowcasting for Brad from Sydney, but again...an epic chase day there....but Boxing Day I was travelling north hoping to get something to chase and scored out near Narromine and Dubbo with this beauty:


Since then though Victoria only offered one chase day, and its been pretty slim pickings in 2012 so far. All in all i would say not a busy season, but one that offered fantastic quality over quantity. I will say, our 2011/2012 Hunters of Thunder DVD is in full production and we should be shipping by Mid-May, so those of you needing your storm fix and to keep away those SDS blues over winter keep your eyes peeled. Its all action - timelapse, images and high quality DVD footage - Not your usual Australian chase DVD.

Well, Adelaides storms this summer, we've had some good easterly dips, these favored the ranges and the mallee more than Adelaide but we had one storm drift over, we had some good frontal storms on the 14th of March, some convective storms early afternoon with the main line of storms slamming in to Adelaide at around 530-600 with some faboulous flangs and very thin CGS and then some faboulous nocturnal cooling action slamming some bolts into the gulf, an okay season i would say, now to look forward to winter with the chilly cold fronts and the coldies .:P

there has been a storm season??????

Amazing shots ST!!

Following on from John's post above, here is a selection of my fav pics of our 2011-12 season down south. As John said, the chase day numbers were down but the structure fest and shear (pardon the pun) number of rotating storms we scored was simply awesome.


Sept 28 Lake Boga, Vic


Oct 7 Sunbury, Melbourne (local lunchtime intercept)



Oct 22 Elmore-Rusworth, Vic



Nov 8th Temora, NSW

Nov 9 Urana, NSW


Nov 29 Nygan, NSW

Dec 1 Werribee, Melbourne



Dec 18 Chingapook, Victoria

Dec 18 Hay, NSW



Dec 24 Mangalore, Vic