Wednesday 27th of September
Chase Duration: 3 hours
Chase Distance: 150km
Report By: David Findlay
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I started work on Wednesday early in the morning out near Lowood. Already the temperature was quite warm and Cu's were going up everywhere. Throughout the day there seemed to be a buildup of cloud to the southwest. At lunch time I got reports of a large band of storms moving in from the southwest. By 2pm the band had reached me near Laidley. Due to the rain and lightning I knocked off work and started chasing. Good excuse I think!
Leaving Laidley heading north for Plainlands I saw quite a nice gust front to my west. It was moving quite rapidly, and the winds and rain had already reached me. The temperature on my car thermometer had dropped from 30C earlier to just 13C. The gust front appeared quite green and the warning from the BOM had reports of hail in Toowoomba. I continued north east through Lowood, just keeping ahead of the gust front. There were quite frequent lightning strikes all around me and the winds were around 50-60km/h.
After passing through Lowood I decided to head up the Brisbane Valley Highway towards Esk, hoping to get ahead of the system. When I reached Wivenhoe Dam a wall of rain awaited me. The rain had only just reached the dam, but was incredibly heavy. By the time I'd crossed the dam I couldn't see much further than 5 metres in front of the car. The winds were incredible as well, I'd estimate they were gusting as high as 100km/h. It was really pushing my car from side to side. I turned into the carpark on the west side of the dam. There were lots of other cars pulled up there too because they couldn't see. The road was covered by at least an inch of water from the falling rain. I decided at this point to head back the way I'd come and try to cross Mt Glorious and get to the coast before the line.
Traveling on the East side of the dam now, going up and down the hills, there was still a huge amount of water coming down the road. Centimeters deep on some slopes. Was really hard to keep control going up and crossing the flowing water. Eventually as I started travelling east the rain eased, and continued at a low rate as I crossed the mountain. Didn't make it to the coast in time and missed a great shelf cloud. It seemed to have weakened largely by this time. From here I headed home to Redcliffe.
There were two other lines that came through, but all weakened by the time they reached the coast. If I'd have known about it, I should have went after a cell that formed near Texas which was incredibly intense on radar and well isolated. It did weaken though later in the afternoon. Was a great start to the season however!
