Chased (sat on!) a classic supercell for 4 hours in the Ouyen-SwanHill region in Vic, then crossed the border and punched through a HP supercell of truly epic proportions and once on the eastern side........WOW! best chase of the season. I am exhausted.
Was tempted to go after that storm, but was just too far away and late for me with work the next day. All I managed was a high based piece of crap around Whycheproof area that certainly wasn't worth the half a tank of gas I used to get to it. Some nice chase country the further you head that way though. Hopefully get a chance to put it to use while I'm on holiday. Should have gone to Aarat yesterday in hindsight, but had no idea it'd grow in to the beast it did lookin at it on the radar earlier on.
Anyway, lookin fwd to seein your pics, Brad. I did hear mention of a possible tornado from John on WZ.
Okay, here are 2 panos from the Hay Maker HP monster supercell of Dec 18th. This was our second supercell after 4 1/2 hours on a classic supercell west of Swan Hill earlier.
These pano's are up to 20 wide angle photos stitched together to show the immense size of this storm. The mid and upper level structure was above us at the time.
much more to come when I can......over 800 photos and hours of video including tripod timelapse
Brad.
Wide angle pano stitches of the early stages of the Chickapook, VIC classic cyclic supercell of 18th Dec 2011. This storm was continuously rotating and producing wall clouds for the entire 4 1/2 hours we were on it, and continued to survive for much longer after we ditched it. These pics show the 2nd wall cloud iteration we observed (the first was huge as we were driving to position) but there were many more to come!
this is where things really got interesting as the Chinkapook supercell went into another gear, the beaver tail fully condensed into the meso, funnels emerged and rain curtains appeared to rotate rapidly....
This is the Hay-maker HP supercell that we intercepted and core punched after dropping the Chinkapook classic supercell! Look closely and you may see something hidden in the background Plenty more pics including close ups of this beast are coming soon.
Hey Michelle, the storm was very close as I think you have noticed. The stitched pano with the highway is comprised of many wide angle photos so you can imagine just how close the storm was. I would suggest the distance of the main structure and wall cloud was about 400-500m away. It was an enormous mesocyclone. When I post some single images the true magnitude of this storm will be evident.
its what you might say if you were in the driver seat when you saw that monster.
I'd say holly mackerony, golly gingoes jumping sky rockets as I have a 4 yr old.
Not to lower the tone of this respectable forum too much girls, I believe the term "Jizz" in this instance is suggesting the storm was "Orgasmic"!!!
Please correct me if I am mistaken Meso!