Thunder Downunder 2000!
"A Day in the 'Tropics'"

Photos by Anthony Cornelius
November 22, 2000

Back to Thunder Downunder 2000 Chase Reports
 

Nov 21, "Amazing Banana Supercell"

Nov 23, "A Limit of Three Mobile Phones"

It looked like the trough would head inland into the central Queensland district.  We decided to hit the shops as soon as they opened to collect our stuff, and then head off as soon as possible.  Geoff had to fix his tyre, and Nick Moir and Mark Dwyer decided they’d invest in a CB radio (now deemed as an absolutely essential item on a ‘TDU’).  Matt, Greg, Macca and I decided to head off first – we would have to go a fair way west, and there was going to be little time to wait – we headed towards Emerald, about 300km west of Rocky.  Then further, towards Alpha.  We didn’t get to Alpha, but we got close.  Storms were developing nicely, both to our north, and to our south.  Road options were a pain though due to the floods, we were basically confined to the main highway, and the surrounding road network.  The cells to the south were the ones we kept our eyes on, mostly because they were going to north northwards and we’d be able to intercept them, or get close enough to get a good view.  This chase ended up being more of a spot-type chase.  We sat at some lookouts for a while and watched.  The updrafts were extremely strong though – including one that “threw up” some pileus, before evaporating into the surrounding environment.  It looked quite nice and photogenic. 

The storm to our south was an odd storm, it displayed strong multicell character – yet it also displayed some significant supercell character with the developing of a nice wallcloud under the western flank.  Now, wallclouds aren’t explicitly associated with supercells, but it had a supercell look on the west, and a distinctly multicell look on the left.  Difficult to say really!  But the wallcloud persisted for a long time, with additional lowerings (most probably also wallclouds, although less defined), developing as the new updraft began to take form before it started to become the mature section of the cell.

We witnessed some tremendous microbursts to the southwest, including one that displayed an impressive curl!  I’d never seen a microburst curl before – I’ve seen many rain feet from microbursts, but never the actual curl!  Was quite a nice sight, even though it was fairly distant.

The storm complex was moving north, as it did it appeared to be weakening out a little, but it still was quite photogenic. 

It continued to weaken (at least visually and structurally), as it progressed northwards.  I had seen some cells die before, but this one took the cake! 

It never actually died as such, but it went from being a good supercell candidate, to looking analogous to a Brisbane coastal shower!!!  Although much more photogenic and defined/isolated.  Nonetheless it had some intense rainshafts, and a nice rainbow! 

The other southerners were also being entertained by some of our Queensland wildlife – namely, a grasshopper.  Grasshoppers must be small down south, that’s for sure!
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We met up with Jimmy and the others about an hour west of Emerald.  We watched a few more storms to the south, they were weakening slowly but there was a chance they might get closer.  Meanwhile, some of the guys entertained themselves with a rock-throwing competition to see who could hit the fence posts etc.  Unfortunately the storms didn’t prove very fruitful, so we decided to wet and see if they’d produce a sunset from the decaying anvils – that they did!  It was a nice little sunset, something good to top off what was a good overall day really!

Report by Anthony Cornelius & Andrew McDonald