Tropical Storms.. love em

Ever since I was a small child, (yeah, yeah, a long time ago now, I know) I have loved the sight, the sound, the smell and excitement of storms. The purchase of a digital camera has only fueled my love of storms as now I can capture the moment to see for all time.

Nature, even at its worst, can provide incredible beauty.

These first two photographs were taken in Brisbane. I had driven from the Gold Coast up to Brisbane, trying hard to beat this storm front. Yes, I love watching them, but I sure prefer NOT to be caught on the freeway IN them !

I have just found out that these pics are not enlarging when clicked on.. I will fix that in the morning - err I didn't say WHICH morning..lol

I just love the colours that shone through here

.

.

These next two photographs were taken some time ago by a friend of mine during a storm that effected Central Queensland. I was in Gladstone at the time (2003). These were taken at a farm near the township of Mt Larcom. Mt Larcom also has the BEST meat pies ever.. many people will attest to this. This is after all.. cattle country.

Wicked shot

If you lighten your monitor now, you can see the cattle in the foreground of this shot. They didn't seem to be perturbed by the storm at all. Now put your monitor back to normal exposure..lol

This is the same storm over Gladstone, but the photographer is unknown to me.

.

.

Gold Coast Storms.

The Q1 being hit by lightning.

.

The Q1 is located in Surfers Paradise, not far up the road from me. It is the tallest residential tower in the world and Nuh Uh, I wouldn't live there for quids! The views are supposed to be magnificent from the observation deck. I have been told that the BEST viewing time is a night of a full moon with no cloud cover. If you look here you can see the views from the top floor penthouse.The Q1 elevator takes you from ground floor to level 77 in 42.7 seconds.. There is a restaurant somewhere in the top floors, but don't count on keeping your lunch in your stomach if you take the elevator down afterwards!

.
.
.
Now, back to my stomping ground and its storms.

We had a huge rain storm on 30 June 2005. I have spoken to many people about this and they would like to see the photographs I took.

It was a well-defined low-pressure system that did not form on the surface (i.e. totally unexpected).So they tell us, these systems can rival the flooding impact of a tropical cyclone. They can occur at any time of the year although they are more common in autumn and in early winter. Keep in mind that our rainy season is summer so this was really strange.

This is my neighbour, totally unknown to us he had been battling the water since 3am... silly bugger didn't tell us did he! We were not aware of the problem till around 6am. Seems the water was flowing down our hill and right into his house. As he redirected the water away from his house, it made for quite a nice river with white water. A few times I did have to usher away the local children who thought it was a great idea to bring their boogie boards and surf down our hill. Call me a spoil sport, but I didn't fancy trying to drive through flooded roads to take them to hospital. From the top of the hill
.
Ending like this at the bottom.

We were rather sodden and yes, some came inside the house.
How pretty is it though?

Look at all those little rivers

Unfortuantely, this is where those little rivers end up.

The back of that vehicle did fill up with water - we wanted to warn whomever it belonged to, but no one knew who owned it.


The emergency crew helped someone....

and in the process, got stuck themselves.


This was the Coolangatta Airport.. oopsie?

This was the local golf course and partially my friends back garden.

.

.

.

This was a very different storm front. It also came out of nowhere. The sky went very very dark.. Almost completely dark at 4pm. Then the heavens opened. After the downpour the most unusual light happened. The photographs do not really do it justice.

It had been a bright sunny cloudless day till this rolled in. See how dark it is behind the initial cloud?

Keep in mind these photographs were taken within a few minutes of each other.


I have not seen anything like the colour of this sky before. It was surreal

I have more photographs ('oh no' I hear you scream) but I think I have posted (more than) enough for now.

I have a few short videos of some electrical storms also. Maybe I will bully Mel into teaching me how to add the videos here as I have no idea how to do so.