21st Dec 2006 Storms and Rain page 2.

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Could it be what it looked like? The image quality was terrible as not enough light was present in the original capture. Still the structure was pretty clear. And this is where the debate starts. Opinions from the Weatherzone forums where I posted the image were wide and varied. Some of the theories were -

• A gustnado
• A funnel
• A tornado
• A cold air thunderstorm style tornado
• Normal Scud and lowerings
• Nothing much at all

At the time of writing the jury is still well and truly out, but here is the "facts" as I see them. The image was a mere 6 second exposure which contributes to the quality loss. However this may have been lucky in a way. Had I let expsoure run out and capture more lightning backlightning the structure of the "funnel" may have been lost in double exposure from the lightning and blur from the movement of the cloud itself. So this is what we have to work with. Below is 100% crop of the "funnel" from the original image exposure pushed all the way int he RAW file conversion.

My personal belief is that it was a funnel, that possibly extended towards the ground past the visible funnel itslef. Whether it made it this far will always be a mystery unless a damage path can be found. I do NOT think it is just a scuddy lowering. The original "gustfront" detailed on the previous page and captured in those fantastic photos had already past and this was an independent development over the ranges in the Kuitpo Valley. It was also very short lived (likely only a few minutes) as an image captured 90 seconds later shows the funnel development not present. (see this image) The Picture was captured between 2 radar image frames the detail of which can be seen below. (radar loops available on request)

So its your call. What do think it is?

General PLots and Rainfall Info

Below are some lightning, rainfall and temp plots. Click on the link for the image you want to see. By morning of the 22nd I had 13.5mm in the gauge from the storms overnight and the previous afternoon. Best falls were again over the northern hills as they always are in these setups. (see map link below for the image of rainfalls) A further 2.6mm fell in the moist southerly following up from the trough giving me 16.1mm for the event. This was the highest 24 hour fall for over 3 months!

| Rain Map  | WX rain graph  | Lightning Map  | WX Temp Graph  | Satellite and Tracker

Images

Photographs were difficult with rainy conditions. A few speccy shots including the funnel and awesome gustefront pics can be seen in this gallery.