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Thursday 24th November

After spending the night at Gilgandra it was time to start heading back south a little, and thankfully it appeared best place for storms would be further south in the Central West. I reached Dubbo and there were already a couple of storms firing to the SE down near Orange so I headed in that direction, stopping for lunch in Wellington. There was a lot of cloud clutter around on the slopes and no real development yet. I could see the Cb tops down near orange but they were moving away so there was no point going after them.

After getting to Molong it was obvious I needed to get off the slopes and down towards Parkes and Forbes so I could at least get a good look at the sky.

I headed SW to Forbes, and soon after some of the Cu stated convecting very quickly. It was still quite a cluttered sky so seeing updrafts was very hard indeed, but a few rain shafts were beginning to develop.

Because it was hard to see updrafts it was difficult to tell what was in front of me. About 5kms before Eugowra, a couple of bases started looking ominous ahead, but they didn't look that special. As I drove into the outskirts of town, all of a sudden a brilliant flash out my drivers side window followed by an immediate crack of thunder... and then the rain just came down.... this base had just decided to unload all of a sudden.

I stopped the car at the entrance to town to watch as the lightning increased and the rain just got heavier. 10 minutes later as the rain eased a little, the roads were already awash, and I headed properly into town thinking it would be good to get somewhere where I can get a good view of this convection. But almost straight away the rain came down even heavier forcing me to stop on the side of the road again.

The rain eased again, and I was about to head off when... ping.......ping... oh no.... ping...ping...ping...ping...ping...... and down came the hail! Started off just small stuff, but then it got to 2cm and I was getting a tad worried. I frantically parked my car under a tree to minimise any damage to the car, but thankfully despite a few 3-4cm stones it was mainly 2cm hail. Mixed in with the hail it continued to pour with rain for the next 20 mins and the road was now pretty much awash with drains not holding.

I tried to head off again but I wanted to hang around and wait for the rain to stop to get some pics of the flash flooding, plus I was forced to get shelter again under a garage as it started to hail once more... finally the rain and hail eased off and I was able to get a couple of pics. It was an impressive sight! The storm must have lasted about 30mins and IMO a good 2 inches of rain must have fell. It may have even been more as the SES have reported that 75mm fell in the 24hrs at Eugowra.

From 'THE ADVERTISER' 25th November 2005

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said hail the size of marbles had also fallen between the nearby towns of Forbes and Cowra yesterday, causing some damage. "It was about two-dollar coin size, so marginally severe," a bureau spokesman said.
State Emergency Service (SES) spokesman Steve Delaney said Eugowra, situated about midway way between the two towns, was struck with hail and about 75mm of rain fell overnight.
But the storms did not cause emergency crews any concern. "The Eugowra council had to get a bulldozer out to clear the road," Mr Delaney said, "but there was no physical damage and our people were not called out."

From 'ABC NEWS ONLINE' 25th November 2005

Farmers in the NSW central west are assessing damage caused by a third night of hail and heavy rain.
Some producers in the Narromine and Eugowra areas received 130 millimetres of rain in less than two hours. Farmers are reporting hail stones the size of marbles.
The storm has damaged crops and waterlogged properties that were ready for harvest, and the Bogan River at Peak Hill has broken its banks.

I finally headed out of town and towards Forbes. I was also mindful of having to get to a photo lab to get my memory card emptied lol... Some of the convection was amazing looking back to town. And all of a sudden this big hail shaft cam tumbling out of one base (see below). A bit further on, and another storm developed to my south, with another nasty hail/rain shaft and a pretty decent lowering on the back...

While waiting for the photo lab to burn my images onto a CD, I drove a few kms SW of town to watch a few cells move to the south of Forbes. Not very spectacular and lightning wasn't overly frequent. I was starting to think most of the better action was once again not where I was. I went back into town to get my CD, and for a check of the radar and tracker. The lightning tracker showed an active line out further to the west so I decided my best chance of more storms was to get out NW of Forbes and hope the storms hold out and reach me before they die. I followed a back road out following the Lachlan River towards Condobolin for about 15kms until I found a nice clear area to park and set up. It wasn't long before the western sky began convecting quickly and took on a rather dark and nasty appearance, and shortly after distant Cgs were spotted.

Pretty soon it appeared as though a gust front was forming ahead of the storm, and shortly after, several lowerings started appearing everywhere from this. At the same time Cgs began to pop out all over the place from the storm and it was starting to look rather green, mean and nasty. As it got closer it appeared that it was going to go over me slightly, and I decided that I didn't want to be caught in it. I was also wanting to be a good position to photograph lightning if it was still going after sunset, so I packed up in a hurry. But just as I started driving back into town, I glanced into the rear vision mirror and swore! This is what I saw: VERY suspicious lowering! I slammed on the brakes and got my camera back out. Unfortunately it was heading away from me to the SE and in inaccessible country.

I observed it for a short while before it was too dangerous with the storm almost upon me. I sped back into Forbes and out the other side, heading SE towards Cowra, keeping in front of the storm, and hoping it would keep intact for just another 30mins or so until it was dark enough to take some lightning pics. Unfortunately it wasn't to be as it dies quickly as the sunset and it was all just rain by the time I got to Cowra.

I grabbed some tea and drove down through constant light rain to Cootamundra where I stayed the night. It had been a fantastic day, scoring 2 of the best storms I have ever experienced!

Panorama of the storm as it approached but

before it started looking really bad.

Click on THIS LINK for a short video of the very suspicious lowering feature in the photo above.


distant Cb to SE near Orange	developing rain shaft near Molong	Cb developing southwest of Molong	convection NW of Molong


ominous bases and rain shaft	looking threatening	torrential rain and hail in Eugowra	Eugowra

Click on THIS LINK for a short movie of the hail and torrential rain, taken from inside my car.


Sydney 512km radar at 3.17pm - showing storm between Forbes and Orange that I was under at Eugowra.	MSL 4pm	Satpic 4.30pm


convection in western sky		gust front developing	southern end of storm


more scuddy lowerings	had to look twice at this lowering!!	green and mean!


still raining	lots of water	roads awash