Clouds and Storms and Lightning, Oh my!
Summer kind of started early for us here in Brisbane. We started to get hot days at the end of September, which basically means we're going to have a hot, humid summer. Yucko... I am not one for summer. Now summer up here is also the rain season, as we are pretty much in the middle of the Tropic of Capricorn. We have what's called a "subtropical" climate, hot moist summers, and mild, dry winters. Basically we're not north enough to be "tropical" and not south enough to be "temperate".
In summer, we have hot days of anywhere upwards of 30 C (86 F). Bearable, right? Add onto that humidity ranging from 50%-100% and summer suddenly isn't so bearable. I grew up in Perth, where humidity is usually present when there is a Cyclone up in the northern part of the state during summer. It was summer when I moved up to Brisbane, so the humidity was a bit of a shock to my system. Summer in Perth is bearable to a point. Yes there are times when it's 35 C + for a couple of days in a row, but there's no lingering humidity of 50%+, day in, day out, and you don't feel like you are suffocating.
On summer days when the humidity is right, we get thunderstorms in the afternoon. You can usually tell when there's going to be a storm, once you've lived here long enough to experience at least one summer. Sometimes you can tell this just by looking up at the clouds. The weather tends to change quickly up here, quicker than down in Perth at least, where you can see a storm in the distance and it takes about an hour before it's upon you. In Brisbane, it seems, you are looking up at some clouds and within the next hour, it's storm city. This year we have had a few hailstorms, in fact we had one on the Gold Coast a few weeks ago, with hailstones the size of golfballs, that caused damage to many a car that was not parked in a garage, not to mention homes.
Afternoon storms are a frequent happening here, too. These are some shots I took during one of the last storms we had.
The storm began to develop late afternoon. My housemates and I watch the weather radar online at the Bureau of Meteorology when the clouds begin to roll in, so that we know if (or usually when) we have to shut down the computers to avoid frying anything. (Always better to be safe than sorry!) Now that I have a digital camera handy, I pulled it out and took some shots of the clouds as they began to edge closer. The shot above was taken on the front veranda facing south.
This shot was taken a little to the left of the previous shot, as you can tell from the position of the power pole. The clouds continued to roll in and the rain began to fall. As it got darker, it became difficult to photograph the clouds, so I decided to wait until the storm started and try and get some lightning shots.
This moody looking shot was taken from my back veranda. Anyone who's tried to photograph lightning without special equipment will know it's a hit-or-miss affair. either you get it or you end up with a lot of black shots on your digital camera. Consqeuently, if I didn't have a digital camera, I wouldn't bother. Digital cameras I find are great, all you need is batteries, you don't need to worry about the cost of film, and it's easier and less costly to delete a picture that didn't turn out instead of developing a truckload of black frames. The shot above I managed to catch at the end of a lightning strike... and you should have heard me going "YES!! I got one" after I took it, I was really that chuffed with myself :P.
Fortunately, this was the brightest shot out of the lot I managed to take that night, but unfortunately, it's out of focus. This is again taken from the front veranda, about 10 minutes before I got tired of the hit-and-miss aspect of taking lightning shots. I was hoping for some fork lightning shots, but no luck, it was mostly sheet lightning and was obscured by the clouds, and I doubt with my lack of uber-techie camera setup that I would have got some anyway.
Maybe one of these days I should invest in a video camera for such events... Here are some shots I took the other day, It was particularly humid that day, and it rained quite a bit.
In summer, we have hot days of anywhere upwards of 30 C (86 F). Bearable, right? Add onto that humidity ranging from 50%-100% and summer suddenly isn't so bearable. I grew up in Perth, where humidity is usually present when there is a Cyclone up in the northern part of the state during summer. It was summer when I moved up to Brisbane, so the humidity was a bit of a shock to my system. Summer in Perth is bearable to a point. Yes there are times when it's 35 C + for a couple of days in a row, but there's no lingering humidity of 50%+, day in, day out, and you don't feel like you are suffocating.
On summer days when the humidity is right, we get thunderstorms in the afternoon. You can usually tell when there's going to be a storm, once you've lived here long enough to experience at least one summer. Sometimes you can tell this just by looking up at the clouds. The weather tends to change quickly up here, quicker than down in Perth at least, where you can see a storm in the distance and it takes about an hour before it's upon you. In Brisbane, it seems, you are looking up at some clouds and within the next hour, it's storm city. This year we have had a few hailstorms, in fact we had one on the Gold Coast a few weeks ago, with hailstones the size of golfballs, that caused damage to many a car that was not parked in a garage, not to mention homes.
Afternoon storms are a frequent happening here, too. These are some shots I took during one of the last storms we had.
The storm began to develop late afternoon. My housemates and I watch the weather radar online at the Bureau of Meteorology when the clouds begin to roll in, so that we know if (or usually when) we have to shut down the computers to avoid frying anything. (Always better to be safe than sorry!) Now that I have a digital camera handy, I pulled it out and took some shots of the clouds as they began to edge closer. The shot above was taken on the front veranda facing south.
This shot was taken a little to the left of the previous shot, as you can tell from the position of the power pole. The clouds continued to roll in and the rain began to fall. As it got darker, it became difficult to photograph the clouds, so I decided to wait until the storm started and try and get some lightning shots.
This moody looking shot was taken from my back veranda. Anyone who's tried to photograph lightning without special equipment will know it's a hit-or-miss affair. either you get it or you end up with a lot of black shots on your digital camera. Consqeuently, if I didn't have a digital camera, I wouldn't bother. Digital cameras I find are great, all you need is batteries, you don't need to worry about the cost of film, and it's easier and less costly to delete a picture that didn't turn out instead of developing a truckload of black frames. The shot above I managed to catch at the end of a lightning strike... and you should have heard me going "YES!! I got one" after I took it, I was really that chuffed with myself :P.
Fortunately, this was the brightest shot out of the lot I managed to take that night, but unfortunately, it's out of focus. This is again taken from the front veranda, about 10 minutes before I got tired of the hit-and-miss aspect of taking lightning shots. I was hoping for some fork lightning shots, but no luck, it was mostly sheet lightning and was obscured by the clouds, and I doubt with my lack of uber-techie camera setup that I would have got some anyway.
Maybe one of these days I should invest in a video camera for such events... Here are some shots I took the other day, It was particularly humid that day, and it rained quite a bit.
posted by FrostilicusFrost at 10:35 am
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