Early Morning Spring Storms over Perth

Storms impacted the northern suburbs of Perth Sunday week ago and into the early morning hours of Monday.
The charts showed a good chance of storms to fire up to the north around dusk on the Sunday, which in turn had me bolt up to one of the fire lookout towers north east of Two Rocks. On arrival I could see very nice structure a long way to the NE, but knowing that the storms should develop closer during the night I decided to stay put.
I did however capture this shot of the lightning that was striking down to the NE of the fire lookout tower.

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As the sun set, I decided I would head home to get some gear ready for the long night ahead.

I checked the radar around 1030pm and saw a little bit of development a long way to the north, so I contacted another mate and it was decided that we were heading up to his lookout near the beach, just incase the storms really did decided to fire up. We wanted to capture the show.
Over the next hour nothing really eventuated, but we thought it would be a good idea to head just a bit further north to Yanchep in the hope that if the storms did fire up, we would be just that little bit closer. So we packed up, and drove the 20kms to the north and set back up again, waiting in anticipation for the following radar updates.
As midnight came closer, the mood was turning south. We could see now development, bar a couple of odd echoes on the radar, so I decided to call it a night. So as I was just about to start packing my gear up to throw in the car, a strike occurred, a little bit to the north along the coast, but a strike none the less.
I unpacked my tripod again, and set up. Now started one of my best nights yet of lightning photography.

The storms really started to fire up, the radar started now to show a little bit of colour, it was GAME ON!
The storms really started to throw out some great photogenic lightning. Very close branchy cloud to ground strikes to our north and slowly to our NE.

Here are a couple of captured as the storms got close.
Due north along the coast
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Due east

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After taking plenty of shots as the storms developed and fired off to the north and north east, I directed my attention to the storms now firing to the south.
Rockingham was now in the firing line, and they were certainly in for a great show if any of these bolts were to go by.

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Facebook’s Perth Weather Live founder and mate Steve Brooks was there, he said “I was watching the cells build on the radar to the NW, but stuck it out at San Remo. Between 2am and 3am I was greeted by some of the best metro sparks I’ve had in quite a while”.

From what I could see they got an incredible show.

Back to the north now, and the storms still fired right up through the morning sunrise. Here are a couple of shots as the sun started creeping towards and over the horizon.

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The night was incredible, spent with another weather nut Cameron Fisher. We were both in awe the whole night, and then to be greeted with the most stunningly vibrant sunrise with fluorescent lightning sparking all around. It was one of the scenes that I certainly will not forget in a hurry.
I cannot wait to get these images printed.

Until next time………………….

Links
Jordan Cantelo Photography (Facebook)
Woz Storms (Facebook)
Perth Weather Live (Facebook),
Perth Weather Live (Web)

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