May 17-19 2003

During this time a front, intense low and cold pool brought storms and high winds to SA on the 17th, then followed by heavy rain and hail on the 19th.

Late in the afternoon on the 17th a few showers were developing especially about Yorke Peninsula with an approaching front. Around 6pm Andrew Wall spotted a lightning flash to the NW but it was a once-only. By 7pm though strikes were evident on tracker on Yorke peninsula from those showers and it seemed to be intensifying.

Andrew, Kathy and Greg headed up to Wynn Vale lookout while I stayed home to watch the Crows game and to see if the storms got closer. By Half-time I decided I should head off to meet them as there was lighting visible to the NW and W. Unfortunately by the time I got up there most of the storm action was heading Southwards and we were not heading that way. Still we saw a few nice flashes from the lookout over the city and coast. (see radar below)

Cells seemed to be popping up on radar north of Pt Wakefield so it was decided that we head out that direction to see what happens. So we parked our cars off a dirt road near Lower Light and waited. Some heavy rain came and went but no storms apart from an occasional flash out west. Soon though we spotted lightning to the NW and this was gradually increasing. We moved further north a little to get a better view of some nice Cg's and CC's. It seemed to be heading SE so would go to our E a bit too much so we headed towards Mallala, but unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the storm and much of the lightning was rain-wrapped. (If anyone has radar of this storm please e-mail me) By now it was heading past us and we were unable to catch it so we tried to get back to Pt Wakefield Road and hope for some more storms to develop but we got lost and took awhile to get back on the Gawler road by which time storm action had all died so we headed home. Kathy's report on this day can be found at the SA Weather site.

A couple of nice cells on the eastern side of the ranges on Sunday 18th.

By mid-morning on the 19th some nice Cu were building into Cbs over the suburbs and dumping some heavy rain. In particular a cell over Parafield spawned a funnel spotted by Kathryn and Andrew.  They were headed off to go down the freeway to chase in the vicinity of the Coorong.
I had a few things to do in the morning so I could only chase after noon. I arranged with Lennie to pick him up and also had my wife Liz with me. Left Lennie's at about 1pm and soon after a huge Cj tower grew up into a Cb over the city. Had what looked like a hailshaft and was caning it down with rain to our east as we travelled down south Road. Soon after we noticed it getting much darker now to our west so I headed to the coast and then travelled down Tapley's Hill Road to corepunch it! Some very heavy rain then arrived especially in the vicinity of Glenelg. This soon cleared so there was a chance to grab some lunch at Brighton while watching a nice cell out over the sea approach. We moved down the Esplanade to Seacliff to intercept it as it hit the coast.  The base was rather impressive as it approached with a rain free updraft area forming on the NE side of the storm almost moving overhead. It was looking very turbulent and we were hoping for a funnel to drop but no such luck. As it started to rain we headed back to the Lonsdale Highway to follow it south and here we encountered the full brunt of the heavy rain once again. 

Moving out of that cell we drove further south to Port Noarlunga where we stopped to take some pics of the cell over the city and to get a radar update from my brother in McLaren Vale.  Not much heading our way for awhile so we called in on him at the Vale and get some surfing to find out the latest. Radar showed a rapidly approaching squall line in the gulf so we headed off pretty quickly. Heading westwards along Tatachilla Road towards Maslins Beach it was obvious it was screaming in and looked nasty. By the time we got to turning back onto South Rd we had spotted a nice lowering and then both Lennie and I saw what looked very much like a long, thin, thread-like funnel poke itself diagonally downwards from the main lowering!! Unfortunately we were in the wrong place at the wrong time with trees obscuring the view of the coast… by the time a clearing came upon the funnel was gone but we stopped the car and took some photos of the lowering just hoping it would show again.

We moved off again and stopped at the Victory Hotel right on Sellicks Hill for a great view of the line has it went over us. The most intense rain appeared to go just south of us.
We then drove down to Myponga through the rain but after an SMS from my brother went back to Sellicks as he reckoned the rain was heavier there lol…. But not soon after we went back to Myponga as another heavy core headed there. It was getting late and dark so it was hard to see the cloud structure but we parked on a side road to see what happens. Sure enough soon it was pelting down and then with a little hail even….  Tea time beckoned so we headed back to the Vale through driving rain and gusty winds. After grabbing tea at Subway while another downpour hit we called it quits and headed home, tired but very happy after a nice drive accompanied by heavy rain, hail, winds, and a funnel!

The storms did cause a bit of damage in some areas. Strong to gale force northwest to west winds affected Eyre Peninsula and parts of the Central district, causing mostly minor damage. The strongest recorded wind gust was 111 km/h at Port Lincoln Airport. Gale force mean winds were also recorded at Streaky Bay and Wudinna. These winds resulted in very high tides during the afternoon and evening, with the jetty at Wallaroo (Yorke Peninsula) sustaining some damage.

A report on this day can also be found at the SA Weather site.

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