Mid North Supercell

Was just taking the Sunday arvo fairly easy at home. It was a hot day, there was cricket on the telly, and the rain band that was off the southern coast looked like it was never going to get any closer to us.

It was about 2pm, I decided another glance at the radar at the southern rain band was in order. Sure enough there it was, still over Kangaroo Island. BUT something else caught my eye.

A small cell had popped up north of Orroroo in the Flinders Ranges. A quick check of the satpic showed a nice field of Cu. I thought this looks promising, but never thought it would get within chasing distance. A couple of radar updates later and this cell has gone yellow and was moving SOUTH! I thought this was rather different for that area, and was thinking if it keeps up it might head straight for Helen at Booborowie. 

An hour later this thing had developed into a monster with a nasty looking core, and was still heading about SSE in the direction of Burra.

I wanted confirmation of whether this thing was as nasty as it looked on radar, so an email to Helen confirmed that in fact this thing was a monster and was putting out some nice lightning, and was awesome structurally. A phone call to Lennie who could see the monster from his house in the northern burbs, and I was off chasing it.... at this stage we were looking at possible supercell characteristics.

Always hard taking pics while driving, but did manage a few. Mid-level cloud was interrupting the view of the whole storm but the main updrafts were very evident. SMS updates led me to take the Barrier Hwy in the direction of Burra, but by the time I got to Manoora it was time to pull off and start taking pics. Some awesome structure and constant rumbles of thunder got me very excited but just as it got within about 10kms of me it started to die dramatically to the stage that I only had some moderate rain over the top of me. It was all over very quick but I was still happy to have just got there in time to see this absolute beast.

My photos are below, but for some impressive shots of the storm as it went over Helen Simpson's place at Booborowie check out these:

Osprey Photography

view from Roseworthy

on the Barrier Hwy		from just north of Manoora

MSL 4pm	Satpic 4.30pm	Satpic 5.30pm	Satpic 5.30pm  zoomed in
	RADAR LOOP (zip file) 2.30pm-7.00pm	Thanks to the BOM and Weatherzone for the use of the these images.