storm reports
November 17, 2009: A Great Lightshow
Storm activity seemed a 50-50 chance. Temperatures were expected to reach the high 30's but humidity was expected to stay low, limiting potential. 
If storms were to get going, the high instability and lower DPs would mean a lot of visible lightning. As it turned out, conditions were perfect for these sort of storms. Archerfield reached 38C and Ipswich 40C, with humidity at 3pm less than 50%, apart from right along the coast, where the seabreeze was increasing moisture there.
At around 2pm storms started developing over the Border Ranges and up the divide over the Darling Downs. Due to other commitments, I couldn't venture too far from home, so I was happy to see storms start to develop in my vicinity after 4.30pm. The following photos were taken between 5.20pm and 6pm at Forest Lake, SW Brisbane:
These storms (in the Forest Lake vicinity) built slowly at first with sporadic lightning strikes. Over the next hour, storms continued to develop and became increasingly noisy.
After 7pm I went back out and I immediately noticed the general increase in nearby lightning, with the CG activity also increasing. I quickly made my way to a spot just east of Archerfield Airport and started snapping.
And... the CGs started hitting within 2km west of me. Conditions were perfect for lightning photography, with big visible and close CG bolts, no low cloud, a warm wind blowing towards the storm and no rain! Nearly all photos are at a wide angle 16mm.
At about this stage, the lightning became particularly dangerous, and I knew it was a risk to continue taking shots. I took the 2 following photos, then one hit super close - within 80m. As it hit, I experienced pain and pins and needles in one arm... but to this day I'm not sure if that was because of the closeness of the lightning strike, or if I hit my arm on the camera/tripod. Needless to say, I missed the shot!
As I settled myself after the very close strike, the storm started to weaken. I think there was one more close strike, which I enjoyed from my car :) The lightning wasn't finished however, as a narrow line of storms moved up from the south. The lightning seemed just as frequent as my recent storm but much further away. I took a few more shots...
Unfortunately these storms weakened as they became closer. I was pretty happy though - it had been a great show!
