October 22nd, 2011 - Leichardt, Victoria
Well, what can I say, was certainly a memorable day for me. So apologies in advance for the long post. Just skip to the pics, if you want...I will probably ramble on a bit.
So began the day by waiting for storms pop up on radar as I had no idea where to target with all the uncertainty surrounding today's events or if there was even going to be any.
Once I saw the line develop out towards Horsham, I decided Newbridge area would be my best bet for an intercept. Almost made it to Newbridge when I was confronted with a wall of grey cloud with the odd CG darting out. As I couldn't make out any structure whatsoever and with the reports of hail from earlier in the day echoing in the back of my mind, I decided against punching through to see what I could find.
So, did a U-turn and headed back towards the Calder Hwy with the plan of pulling in to one of my favorite side road viewing areas between Marong and Bridgewater. As I got within about 2 or 3km's of my destination, I could make out some distinct low hanging cloud, but the trees lining the Highway meant I was only catching the occasional glimpse of it, so I really didn't know what I was in for...updraft base, guster, wall cloud?
Anyway, turned out to be what looked like a pretty standard gust front, but as it slowly boar down on me, this thing looked mean as hell! After about ten minutes of firing off photos, I was struck with massive outflow winds that nearly knocked me over and left me in no doubt that this thing meant business, so it was time to get out of there!
Usually in this situation, I would do the stupid thing and try outrun the storm back to Bendigo, which never turns out as planned! So, I tried something different and darted around the NE side of it and headed towards Bridgewater, which in the end saved me from get annihilated with hail and gave me a beautiful view of the back side of it as it headed east.
After soaking that up for a while and giving it time to get far enough ahead of me, so I wouldn't catch up to the core, I headed for home. I reach somewhere around Derby about 10km's north Marong and I am greeted with sheets of hail and leaf litter strewn everywhere, so of course, jumped out for more photos! Hail was roughly $2 coin size, but by my estimates would have been sitting there for close to 30 minutes before I came across it, so who knows how big they were before they begun to melt.
After that I'm thinking can this day get anymore crazy? As I got closer to Marong, the hail was piled up like snow and completely covering the roads, no lines visible, nothing. Unfortunately I couldn't get out for any photos of the hail there cause it was just way too slippery and getting pretty hazardous...they even had a cop car out there with a little warning thing on top of it! Well done to them for being on top of it.
And here are the photos, in the order things happened basically...
Been waiting ages to get a photo like this, massive storm isolated against blue sky. You can see the towers feeding it on the left.
Overshooting top...?