Wheat Belt Lightning and Storm Photos

Friday 22nd November 2002 was a day when severe storms affected many parts of the West Australian wheat belt. The first storm of the day went up close to York just after lunch, prompting myself and David Bettini to give chase. Whilst the first storm dissipated before we could reach it and take photos, another developed to it's south soon after. The storm quickly became severe, as indicated by the large rain free base in the photos below. Soon after the storm produced golf ball size hail, torrential rain and flash flooding near Pingelly.

After the Pingelly storm moved off to the SE we spotted the next thunderstorm developing further south close to Narrogin. It turned out the storm formed right on top of the town, quickly gathered strength and began to move east. The first photo below shows the heavy precipitation below the storm's core, while the second shows a well developed rain foot which developed soon after. As the storm changed direction and began to move NE it developed great low level cloud features below it's rain free base. If there were any doubts about the storm's severity they were dispelled at dusk when the entire rain shaft turned white confirming it as a heavy hail storm. Our hopes of lightning photography were unfortunately dashed as the storm died right on sunset.