Thunderstorm, Coimadai, VIC. Photo credit: Rob Embury
While on a storm hunting expedition in Victoria, weather-obsessive Rob Embury knew he had to capture the dramatic scene ahead of him as he drove.
Finding a vantage point to pull to the side of the road after emerging from traffic, Rob pulled out his camera and went to work capturing the moody scene.
He photographed an intense hail core dumping hail from the back end of a strong thunderstorm as it moved slowly east near Coimadai in Victoria, the photo being featured as the March image in the 2026 Australian Weather Calendar.
“It was a nice spot with perfect light, and it perfectly captured the hail that was getting dumped,” he said.
“It was very a quick pull over to take a few photos there before continuing on to try and get the next storm.”
A hail core, like the one visible in Rob’s photo, is where the heaviest and most widespread hail is concentrated during a thunderstorm.
Photographer Rob Embury. Credit: Rob Embury
With a strong downdraft, a lot of hail can be dumped from the core in a short space of time.
As a keen weather watcher, Rob knew exactly what he was looking at once he saw the storm clouds ahead of him.
“I think I’ve been pretty weather-nerdy and storm-obsessed since I was a kid,” he said.
“When most people are going inside when there's a storm coming, I'm standing outside and watching it for the entire time.”
Around 12 years ago, Rob picked up a camera, kicking off a passion for actively chasing storms and capturing extreme weather on camera, a hobby that has seen him travel around the world in pursuit of weather, including to Tornado Alley in the USA 3 times.
It’s a time-consuming hobby which sees Rob often drive for hundreds of kilometres in a day following the weather and spend hours trying to get a good photo.
But it’s the allure of witnessing the beauty and ferocity of severe weather, while being able to share it with others through photos, that keeps him on the road and snapping photos.
“The entire thing is fascinating,” he said.
“As far as storms go, one of the things that fascinates me the most is that every single one is completely unique.
“You can see certain things in storms that you can relate to past experiences of seeing a similar storm, but nothing's ever exactly the same.
“I suppose it's that that's part of it, and another part is just the incredible power that storms have – and the fact that there's a little bit of danger thrown in there.”
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