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Models today were not looking all that good up our way, 0 lis and 1200 CAPE on the BT's with around 9kts @ 500. The plan was originally to go to the BT's and we thought there might be some storms, but by the time we left it was quite clear storms were going to go off with very nice cumulus going up. We got to Gloucester after driving through the beautiful scenery before then had some lunch. After lunch showers were developing in the area, but nothing like what was happening in the Upper Hunter. We ventured into the BT's but did not go any further because of dirt roads, and if it was going to rain.. we would have gotten bogged perhaps! We went into the library, checked the radar and headed back, originally planning to go to Taree. We couldn't help but notice some cells S towards Nelsons and some vigorous updrafts behind it, so we decided to shoot down to Bulahdelah instead. As we got closer the updrafts became clearer and more defined and looked quite nice! The Nelsons Bay stuff caught our most interest at first.
As we got closer and closer to Bulahdelah the storm to the W of the town kept getting stronger, with some knuckles evident on the anvil.
We got carried away by the Nelsons Bay cell a bit and went a bit S of Bulahdelah but it was evident it was collapsing. This was shown even more so when the Nelson bay storms gustfront had detached and was moving N into the Bulahdelah storm!
We stopped at a U turn bay after heading towards Bulahdelah to get photos of the approaching storm. However trees blocked our view of it, which made photos difficult. The gustfront looked quite awesome as it came over the hills, being not far above them! The core on the southern side of the storm was quite intense. CG's were flashing away with some nice rumbles about. As the storm got closer it revealed the whole structure of it which was quite nice for a such poorly sheared environment!
When the storm came off the hills it weakened a fair bit, but it still contained some heavy rain as indicated in the rain curtain! The radar for the storm can be seen here.
As the cell passed over there was nothing special in it, just heavy rainfall rates between 100 and 130mm/h, and eating dinner during then was nice!
We went to Myall Lakes to see a decent sunset.
After 10 mins we were distracted by the line that passed through Crowdy Head/Taree as crawlers were being spewed out. We headed down to the beach to see a light show, mainly incloud and every 10-15 secs or so but it spewed out one of the best anvil crawlers I'd seen and some very nice CG's! I managed to get 90% of the CG's on cam, but only the powerful ones came out as the storm was around 40km away! There was also an interesting craler captured.
All in all a nice day! The drama was not over yet though, a quick cool SE'r started blowing, before the wind swung N'ly, which was gale force at the camp site! Only the camp site mind you, SE'ly scud was racing in from the SE with a howling N'ly, only 15km/h was being recorded at nearby Forster and the beach 200m away was calm! Some kind of small eddie/convergance area overhead. It blew the tent down and off to the motel we went.
