November: Thunderstorm catches out Byron Bay beachgoers

Kathryn Lynch’s family knows she will drop everything and be out the door with her camera when dramatic weather looms near their home at Pittwater, on Sydney’s northern beaches. The recent convert to photography is “really, really enjoying it, becoming a real weather watcher, and taking two cameras everywhere.” Kathryn was holidaying near Byron Bay in December 2008, and was tracking a storm on the Bureau of Meteorology website when conditions became very hot and still mid-afternoon. “Then a terrific wind whipped things along the beach as the tail-end of the storm came over,” she says. “I kept on shooting, shielding the camera between shots; and the cricketers also played on.”

The thunderstorm formed in unstable conditions to the east of an easterly trough. Easterly troughs are a dominant feature of the synoptic pattern over Australia during the summer months. They form on the lee side (inland side) of the Great Dividing Range, creating a boundary between the moist coastal air and dry inland air. They mostly extend through central Queensland and central New South Wales, sometimes extending right down into northern Victoria. They are partly formed by the intense heating of the land during the summer months, but the topography also plays a role. As the temperature rises during the day, the trough deepens and moves towards the coast, causing showers and thunderstorms to form in the unstable air. Super-cell thunderstorms were observed on and ahead of the trough in the region of Byron Bay, with some reports of 4 to 5-centimetre hail.

Note: The photograph in the printed calendar is NOT watermarked with a copyright symbol and name.

Back to main calendar page