Perth Lightning and Storm Photos

I took the following lightning photo north of Perth, Australia, on the night of 29th March 2003. A mid level disturbance produced thunderstorms and a lot of rain over Perth and surrounding districts. The rain was a real hindrance to lightning photography, but I did get this photo just before heavy rain set in for the night.

Sunday 18th November 2001 was a great day for storm chasing around Perth. In the late afternoon and evening we observed two severe storms close to Gin Gin before deciding to head back to Perth as a very active thunderstorm looked to be forming off the coast. The storm eventually hit Perth's northern suburbs around midnight, at which time a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for the Perth metro area. As the storm hit it produced a nice gust front, very frequent lightning, strong winds and some hail. I really like the way the lightning is illuminated the spectacular shelf cloud structure.

I took the lightning photo below on the same night as those above, but I thought it deserves a special mention. This is actually a single lightning strike and it's close, very close in fact! If you look carefully you should be able to see that the lightning actually goes below the line of the horizon. The time between the lightning flash and thunder clap was a fraction of a second. I estimate the lightning struck within 500 metres of where I was standing.