North Central Vic Thunderstorms - October 12th 2010
First cell I caught was near Maryborough, had a massive rain/hail curtain on it and I didn't follow the cell too long. You can see a tinge of green in the first photo so I suspect their may have been some hail in there somewhere. As you can see from the photos it was really dumping!
After taking a few photos of the Maryborough cell, I quickly checked the radar and decided to head towards a cell coming down past Birchip. After driving for 10 mins or so I realised the GPS was taking me through St Arnaud way, which is a terrible area for chasing with all the trees. So, I thought better of it and turned around and headed back towards Bendigo, basically with the attitude of "Whatever happens, happens, if I see something, great, otherwise, oh well..." I think I should take this attitude more often as I spotted a nice cell as I was coming through Bridgewater heading SE to Bendigo.
Managed to stay in front of it from Bridgewater to Marong, whilst periodically stopping to take a few shots...
Somewhere near Marong after darting around trying to get a better view I was smashed by the core and basically had to drive 40-50km/h back to Eaglehawk due to whiteout conditions and strong winds sending branches all over the road.
Emerged from the core between Eaglehawk and Golden Square in Bendigo and managed to get another view on it before following it to my front door step...
Some nice low scud getting sucked in to the storm in this first shot...
Gave up on it after that and went and had some dinner. All in all a most enjoyable chase, with no long trip home afterwards, which was a bonus