Perth’s first Summer Storms

Well they are here, Perth’s summers storms have finally arrived. The very photogenic, high based, branchy lightning that I love capturing started striking north of Perth just before midnight, so I made my way to Jindalee with fellow photographer and weather nut Cameron.
We saw the storms staring to spark a long way to our NW, so we held steady until they got a touch closer, and then made the decision to get off our hill, and down to the sand-dunes. A good move as the storms came right over the top of us, and our spot on the hill probably wasn’t the safest place to be.
I love to capture lightning, but I really like to place subjects in my shot, just to add a different dimension  and perspective to it. So I got Cameron to hold steady and composed a shot I hoped would come out, I just needed the lightning to co-operate.
It did, and I managed these shots of Cameron in his element.
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And this one,

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A majority of the storms were relatively short lived, but they produced some incredible lightning.

Off the coast, my favourite shot of the night.

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It just kept producing amazing bolts. The hardest part, anticipating where the big strike will strike.

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More amazing branchy cloud to ground lightning,

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The boats off the coast, were in the prime location to view the storms. Saying that, I don’t know if I wanted to be under this one.

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As the storms moved over us, we made the decision to move east of the Pinjar pine plantation to try and capture a cell now moving quickly down the Darling Scarp, but the storms were just a bit too fast and were moving to the SE very quickly. Checking the radar, they were hooking through at around 70-80kmh, too quick for us to catch them.

I fired one last shot off before calling it a night.

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Until the next time….

All official forecasts are from Bureau of Meteorology.
Check out PerthWeatherLive on Facebook for updates on the weather around Perth and Western Australia.

Storm Event 6/7-9-13( Gascoyne, Wheatbelt, Lower West)

The most promising setup for thunderstorm development since last summer was forecast for most of the southern half of Western Australia on the 6th of September, and that prompted a certain trip for myself to again get out and try to capture this magical weather phenomenon on my camera.

Just over a week before the storms arrived I noticed on my daily check of forecasted weather that I should start preparing for a road trip up towards the lower Gascoyne region to capture my favourite part, the development.

My day started at around 1030 with a drive to Coorow via Bindoon and the Bindoon Bakery. No storm chase can start without a stop here. So after enjoying a curry lamb pie, I was off up the Great Northern Highway towards Midlands Rd and on to Coorow via Moora.

I arrived in Coorow just after 1330, and had another look at the radar, and satellite imagery to see if anything looked like it was going to develop in the area. I wasn’t in luck, with storms started to fire a long way east on a low pressure trough line cutting through the state. I didn’t worry to much about it, as the afternoon was young, and it gave me a bit of time to scout the area a bit. I am currently working on a time-lapse project and the fields around here work perfectly for one of the scenes I wanted to capture, so off I went to find one suitable for my project.
I found an incredible site and set my camera up and started my time-lapse of the clouds building and collapsing. I had some more time up my sleeve now as my time-lapse was set for 1hr, so I had a bit of a walk around playing on my iPhone.

Coming close to the end of my time-lapse I noticed some development a long way to my north and north-east, so I opened my laptop and again checked the lightning tracker, and it confirmed a major thunderstorm developing very quickly between 150-200km away. I was in two minds, either packed up my camera, stop the time-lapse and move now, or wait for the time-lapse to finish. I decided to wait, as I only had 10minutes or so remaining, but it was the longest 10minutes ever. I was pacing up and down the road, watching these thunderstorm cells popping up and going crazy. They were too far away to see any lightning, but they were large cauliflower clouds with an every increasing anvil spreading across the sky.

My time-lapse finished, I packed my gear up and raced east towards Latham.
I kept my eyes on the development, and I had to pull over near Latham to capture one of the storms.

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As I got to Latham, I had to turn south and now head towards Wubin for fuel, and to meet with fellow storm chaser and friend Steve Brooks (owner of Perth Weather Live, http://www.perthweatherlive.com).

I arrived in Wubin, and met with Steve. He had been watching the cells to the north as well, so with a quick check of the radar to see the direction these cells were going, we saw that they were going to cross well south of Paynes Find to the north, and so the decision was made to get north, and find a spot to set up and capture these systems as they passed us by.

While we were driving the sun started to set and the thunderclouds become illuminated with incredible colours. It was incredible to witness. We were so focused to get to our spot that we missed the opportunity to capture the sunset at its best, but, we still still got a bit of colour and you can see that how it would’ve been incredible 5-10mins before hand.

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When we arrived at our location, we set up and started to capture the storms in the distance. One was to our North-East, one was t our North-West. Both were firing on all cylinders. Flashing, and sparking everywhere. Every second multiple strikes illuminated the clouds. So what did I do. I set up my time-lapse to capture it. I havent finished processing that yet, but when I do, I will post a link to the page it will be hosted on.

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Then the night really began.

A shot of a meteor flying over first cells of the night to the north.

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As the first cells passed over and headed east, the skies to the west now started to light up. Cells were quickly developing to our west, and were going nuts!!

A shot of the Milky Way with the storms firing underneath.

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Large amounts of rain mixed with hail were falling from incredible formations in the clouds.
Something about the structure I just love underneath thunderstorms.

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Lightning was all around

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One of the final cells that passed over before I had to make the long drive home.

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I had to leave, as I had to get back to Perth. The drive home was very eventful. Large hail, strong winds, lightning all around.

An extremely eventful night, but I am so glad I was able to witness it, and not on my own either. Cheers Steve, it was so great to have someone else there, yelling out as much as I was!! 🙂

I just hope this is an indication of a very active spring/summer storm season in the Midwest and Wheatbelt.

More photos to come.

Till next time.

Strong Cold Fronts, Perth, July 26th 2013

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Yesterday (26/7) a series of strong cold fronts impacted the Western Australian south west coastline.
Not one to shy away from the opportunity to get a few photos, I thought it would be a good chance to capture a bit of colour at sunset.
Just my luck, as when I arrived another cell was about to cross the coast just to the south of my location at Jindalee.
I was in the best position to capture it, just before it impacted the coast. The system intensified as it neared the coast and bought with it very heavy rain, hail, and strong winds.

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This second photo is the same system as above just before it crossed the coastline. You can see how the rain sheet has intensified from the previous photo.

Later in the night, another series of storms swept through the northern suburbs and right over my place.
I don’t usually travel during these events, as 1) they are too dangerous to travel in, strong wind, heavy rain, and hail making driving very hazardous, mixed with over traffic. No thanks!, So when they come to me, I can just set up in my garage, and point my camera to the sky.

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This time, I had a strike very close to me, and the thunderstorm ripper right over my head. As soon as this cloud to ground strike occurred, the loudest, most explosive thunder clap I have heard for a while shook the house.

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It has got me wanting the spring and summer storm season to hurry up and arrive so I can head out to the Wheatbelt and capture this magical phenomena once again.

Stats from this cold from event.
( From the Bureau of Meteorology, Australia)
A wind gust of 102 kilometres per hour was recorded at Ocean Reef at 7:30am.

A wind gust of 91 kilometres per hour was recorded at Rottnest Island at 12:21am.

The Cold Front Approaching Perth 19-5-13

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Another cold front crossed over the Western Australian coast tonight. A few nice thunderstorms accompanied it. When I arrived to capture photographs, this is what greeted me.
The full moon was illuminating the clouds from above and the stars were out.
I couldn’t resist myself, but to get a panorama of it all.
Tonight was by far the coldest I have ever been taking photos of thunderstorms. Lucky I had a big woolly jumper on.

Goomalling Lightshow

On the 6th of January, I was lucky to witness one of the most active storms of the summer season here in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia.
I had thought I had lost these images after accidentally misplacing them while transferring the files off my camera. Thank god I did a random search through a few folders on my computer and found them again. I hope you enjoy viewing them.

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-Electric Skies-

As you can see, this particular storm out in the Wheatbelt provided ample opportunity to us to capture lightning. The activity was out of this world.
This is what I love to capture, and all I can think about is getting out to the next system and capturing it.
I think I’ve found what I want to do.

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-Active Strobe Show-

This particular night was so active, incredibly this is just a 30s shot. The bolts were coming down everywhere. The winds just in front of this system were very strong, at one stage I had to hop into my car, and hope to god my camera rig was sheltered enough not to get knocked over.

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-Forked Light-
The cloud is the way it is, due to lightning strobing through the cloud during the exposure. One strike would illuminate the cloud in its current position, another strike several seconds later would freeze the cloud in that position, resulting in the effect you see here.

You can read the full chase report of the day HERE.

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All photos used on this site severewatherphotography.wordpress.comsevereweatherphotography.com.au, jordancantelophotography.wordpress.com & http://www.jordancantelo.com are copyright and are the property of Jordan Cantelo. Strictly no reproduction or commercial use allowed without prior approval.

Photography website limitations.

Please Note: The best care has been taken to accurately represent the finished photograph in the online gallery, however due to web limitations and differences in individual user’s monitor settings, printed photograph colours may differ slightly from the photographs viewed on this website.

Wheatbelt & Perth Storms 6&7-1-13

On Sunday I headed out to the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia to again chase down a few thunderstorms that were forecast to develop in the area during the afternoon. And form up they did. I headed off from my place in the northern suburbs of Perth at around 1215pm and drove towards the town of Brookton. As I headed down a highway towards Brookton I encountered very heavy rain about 15km from the town, heavy enough for me to almost come to a complete stop for 30s. It was a crawling pace, but only last for a short while.

I got to Brookton at around 1445, and refuelled. I had received a call just prior to arriving from fellow chaser Tom, who said that he was going to try and get in front of a system that was already forming just SE of town, so after refuelling I checked the radar and realised that Tom was on the money, the system that he was chasing was developing quickly.
Not one to wait around, I headed south towards Pingelly, and then east towards the town on Yealearing. I found myself about 5-10 minutes too late, the storm was already over the town, and I had no other choice but to try and core punch the system to get to the other side (something I do not recommend trying, and something I always try to avoid). The result would’ve been a few spectacular photos. I know this because Tom was able to get in front of this cell and capture the most defined wall/shelf cloud I have seen for a long time.

Feeling a bit down because I had driven a few hours to get here and missing the shot, I was still very keen to stay out and try to get a few shots. The forecast wasn’t the best, so I had made the decision to head towards the town of York and try my luck at some star trail time-lapse for the night. Though my luck was about to change. As I was heading towards York, I could see on the northern horizon a series of cumulonimbus clouds exploding into the air. So I pulled over for a quick look at the radar, and it confirmed a thunderstorm was in fact starting to build to my north by about 75km. So that is where I headed, towards the town of Goomalling, and then onto Wongan Hills.

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I didn’t make it to Wongan Hills as the storm was well and truly firing by the time I got close. The lightning was very frequent, and when I got my camera set up, I was capturing at least 2-3 strikes per 20sec in frame, (out of frame easily 5 more). It was an incredible lightshow and it was going to fly directly over me.

I set my camera up as quick as I could and hopped back into my car, just in case a stray bolt decided that I was going to be a target on this night. As the storm got closer the winds picked up tremendously, with gusts easily in excess of 100kmh, I struggled to get the camera back into my car. My car was shaking around, and I knew I had to get further up the road and away from these gusts.

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As I pulled out from the edge of a farmers paddock, I was lucky enough to bump into fellow chasers who were chasing this particular system earlier on.
We all headed back towards Goomalling and watched this system fire of lightning like there was no tomorrow. An incredible sight.

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The system continued for another 45 minutes or so towards Goomalling, before tracking slightly more to the SE towards Cunderdin, the storm weakened rapidly and we headed off.

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On the way home, I checked the radar one more time, and low and behold another couple of cells were moving down the coast from Geraldton. Knowing I had the Monday off work, I got in contact with another chaser/photographer who was out in the wheatbelt to see whether he wanted to stay out and wait for these storms to come to us. We met up in Yanchep, and the cells tracked straight down the coast passed Jurien Bay, Lancelin, Guilderton and then onto Yanchep. I didn’t have my telephoto lens, so I decided that I would time-lapse the approaching storms.

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The second and final cell went over our heads at around 0530am.

The radar showed not too much more development was in behind these cells, so I headed home exhausted, but with a card full of very cool shots.

I travelled a total of 890km for the day chasing around the Wheatbelt and back into Perth. Needless to say, I loved every minute of it.

A video I put together of the chase, it features a couple of short time-lapse sequences, as well as a few photos found in this post

YouTube (Video Link)
Vimeo (Video Link)

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All photos used on this site severewatherphotography.wordpress.comsevereweatherphotography.com.au, jordancantelophotography.wordpress.com & http://www.jordancantelo.com are copyright and are the property of Jordan Cantelo. Strictly no reproduction or commercial use allowed without prior approval.

Photography website limitations.

Please Note: The best care has been taken to accurately represent the finished photograph in the online gallery, however due to web limitations and differences in individual user’s monitor settings, printed photograph colours may differ slightly from the photographs viewed on this website.

Approaching Storms

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Last month I travelled north to capture storms that were forecast to develop around the Jurien/Coorow/Moora areas.
After a big night of lightning near Jurien, the storms started to develop further inland.
I was on my way to meet up with another storm photographer Marie and her parter Arek, when I saw this developing just to my north.
It turned out to be quite nasty when it hit, strong wind gusts, and isolated very heavy rain impacted the area, about 30km or so NNW of Moora.

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All photos used on this site severewatherphotography.wordpress.comsevereweatherphotography.com.au, jordancantelophotography.wordpress.com & http://www.jordancantelo.com are copyright and are the property of Jordan Cantelo. Strictly no reproduction or commercial use allowed without prior approval.

Photography website limitations.

Please Note: The best care has been taken to accurately represent the finished photograph in the online gallery, however due to web limitations and differences in individual user’s monitor settings, printed photograph colours may differ slightly from the photographs viewed on this website.

– Approaching Storms –

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Last month I travelled north to capture storms that were forecast to develop around the Jurien/Coorow/Moora areas.
After a big night of lightning near Jurien, the storms started to develop further inland.
I was on my way to meet up with another storm photographer Marie and her parter Arek, when I saw this developing just to my north.
It turned out to be quite nasty when it hit, strong wind gusts, and isolated very heavy rain impacted the area, about 30km os so NNW of Moora.

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All photos used on this site severewatherphotography.wordpress.comsevereweatherphotography.com.au, jordancantelophotography.wordpress.com & http://www.jordancantelo.com are copyright and are the property of Jordan Cantelo. Strictly no reproduction or commercial use allowed without prior approval.

Photography website limitations.

Please Note: The best care has been taken to accurately represent the finished photograph in the online gallery, however due to web limitations and differences in individual user’s monitor settings, printed photograph colours may differ slightly from the photographs viewed on this website.

Stormy Sunsets

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I am not one to bring my camera to work, but with the threat of thunderstorms it was a given that it was going to accompany me.

The day was coming to a close and having experienced an absolute scorcher (41C) it was very fitting to have just one of the most beautiful sunsets I have witnessed appear in front of us.
While we ate dinner, I had to set up and get this shot.

I hope you enjoy it 🙂

Taken on the south-eastern edge of Moore River National Park, Western Australia.

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All photos used on this site severewatherphotography.wordpress.comsevereweatherphotography.com.au, jordancantelophotography.wordpress.com & http://www.jordancantelo.com are copyright and are the property of Jordan Cantelo. Strictly no reproduction or commercial use allowed without prior approval.

Photography website limitations.

Please Note: The best care has been taken to accurately represent the finished photograph in the online gallery, however due to web limitations and differences in individual user’s monitor settings, printed photograph colours may differ slightly from the photographs viewed on this website.

Lightning over the Airport

Severe storms are continuing to lash parts of the south-west region of Western Australia today with a couple of towns recording daily rainfall readings of greater then 100mm.
This is all being caused by a low pressure system just hanging off the coast, that is dragging a lot of moisture into the south-west.
The last few days I have been working out of the airport, and while the storms passed over today I grabbed my camera to try my hand at capturing some daylight lightning. With the trigger all ready, I pointed the camera out in the middle of the airfield and managed to capture a couple of strikes.

Here is one, and ill post the others later tonight.

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All photos used on this site severewatherphotography.wordpress.comsevereweatherphotography.com.au, jordancantelophotography.wordpress.com & http://www.jordancantelo.com are copyright and are the property of Jordan Cantelo. Strictly no reproduction or commercial use allowed without prior approval.

Photography website limitations.

Please Note: The best care has been taken to accurately represent the finished photograph in the online gallery, however due to web limitations and differences in individual user’s monitor settings, printed photograph colours may differ slightly from the photographs viewed on this website.

Perth’s Stormy Start To Summer

Perth usually is really starting to warm up at this time of year, with thunderstorms not uncommon to pop up in the forecast. The start of summer this year has been a relatively unusual stormy one. Not that I am complaining one little bit, the opportunities to get out and about to capture these storms has been fantastic.
The last week I have been working out of Perth Airport, so when I am not too busy, I have been able to get out and grab a few photos.
Here are a couple of shots I have managed over the last 3 days. With a few more still to be downloaded.

This shot was taken from the new viewing platform over the 03 threshold at Perth International.

Perth Airport Sunset

This is taken at 7am out the front, with our Helitacts parked up underneath the mammatus clouds above.

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All photos used on this site severewatherphotography.wordpress.comsevereweatherphotography.com.au, jordancantelophotography.wordpress.com & http://www.jordancantelo.com are copyright and are the property of Jordan Cantelo. Strictly no reproduction or commercial use allowed without prior approval.

Photography website limitations.

Please Note: The best care has been taken to accurately represent the finished photograph in the online gallery, however due to web limitations and differences in individual user’s monitor settings, printed photograph colours may differ slightly from the photographs viewed on this website.

Velvet Skies

I love the velvet, silky flowing look the underside of thunderclouds have.

This was taken from Jindalee Beach, Western Australia as thunderstorms crossed the coast on the night of the 4th December.

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You can follow my severe weather photography blog also at

http://www.severeweatherphotography.com.au

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All photos used on this site severewatherphotography.wordpress.comsevereweatherphotography.com.au, jordancantelophotography.wordpress.com & http://www.jordancantelo.com are copyright and are the property of Jordan Cantelo. Strictly no reproduction or commercial use allowed without prior approval.

Photography website limitations.

Please Note: The best care has been taken to accurately represent the finished photograph in the online gallery, however due to web limitations and differences in individual user’s monitor settings, printed photograph colours may differ slightly from the photographs viewed on this website.

First Severe storms of the season 2012/13

Well what a night, here are a few photos from our storm chase the other night following a couple of severe systems in the Central West district of Western Australia.

I will post a chase report tomorrow, but until then please enjoy a couple of photos from the night, plus a milky way shot, in between shooting lightning.





I turned to the south and saw the milky way in all its glory. Not one to miss an opportunity, I quickly turned to get a shot off.

 

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All photos used on this site severewatherphotography.wordpress.comsevereweatherphotography.com.au, jordancantelophotography.wordpress.com & http://www.jordancantelo.com are copyright and are the property of Jordan Cantelo. Strictly no reproduction or commercial use allowed without prior approval.

Photography website limitations.

Please Note: The best care has been taken to accurately represent the finished photograph in the online gallery, however due to web limitations and differences in individual user’s monitor settings, printed photograph colours may differ slightly from the photographs viewed on this website.

Storms in Kalgoorlie

Last week I was asked to come to Kalgoorlie for work and I took the opportunity as I have never visited the mining town, home to apparently the most valuable bit of land in the world ( the super-pit ).
Knowing also that Kalgoorlie has a reputation for getting a few good thunderstorms, I watched the weather pretty closely over the last week and a bit. A few days ago, the forecast changed for the better and the good ol’ thunderstorm sign started to appear on weather forecasts.

After passing just south of some storms on my way to Kal this afternoon, it certainly turned it on for a short while here. As soon as I landed, I headed to my accommodation, checked the radar and saw that I needed to get to a good vantage point fairly quickly. I am fortunate to have a mate of mine who lives here, take me to the major lookout over town. Being into photography himself, we both set up to watch a fairly impressive line of thunderstorms approach the mining town. It seemed to be a popular spot, as several groups of people rocked up not long after we arrived. I was also able to meet up with another WAweathergroup member, Matt. We were all stoked to get to such a great spot.
We both were able to fire off a nice amount of photos, and these are some of the better ones.
First night in Kal, and ive fallen in love with the place, a great storm.

Details
Canon 5d Mark II
24-105mm f4.0L IS USM
A: f5.6
T: 37s
ISO: 100

Details
Canon 5d Mark II
24-105mm f4.0L IS USM
A: f5.6
T: 10s
ISO: 100

Canon 5d Mark II
24-105mm f4.0L IS USM
A: f5.6
T: 29s
ISO: 100

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Canon 5d Mark II
24-105mm f4.0L IS USM
A: f5.0
T: 43s
ISO: 100

Building storms over the Kennedy Ranges

Not much as been happening with the weather lately in Perth, well not much in the way of thunderstorms or interesting weather to be exact.
The final weekend of summer is quickly drawing to a close for yet another year and hopefully with the return of autumn and winter, a more photographic weather patten may develop.
Saying that, summer has brought with it some stunning sunsets and I have a few of those on my other photographic blogsite at
http://www.jordancantelo.com

In the meantime, I continue to look through the photographs I have taken in recent times and have found this one. I hope you like it.


Details
Canon 5d Mark II
24-70mm f2.8L USM IS + CircPol
A: f8
T: 1/500
ISO: 100

Remnants of Tropical Cyclone Iggy

Over the last week or so, Tropical Cyclone Iggy has been lingering off the West Australian coast, threatening to cross with potentially severe winds and rain. He didn’t.
Iggy was first classified as a cyclone in the early hours of Australia day (January 26th). He was situated roughly 820km NW of Exmouth and 970km WNW of Karratha. Ever so slowly moving towards the Pilbara coast.
The Pilbara was put on cyclone watch as Iggy slowly intensified. Initially Iggy was forecasted to reach Cat 3 or even Cat 4 by the time it hit the Pilbara, but this never eventuated.
Iggy played around in the Indian Ocean making a couple of small dashes towards the coast and then retreating. From what I was hearing from weather forecasters, this cyclone was one of the more difficult cyclones to future forecast track. All meteorological models for the area were showing all different scenarios.
Iggy eventually started to make his way south into ‘cooler’ waters and very slowly started to weaken, and eventually was declared an ex tropical cyclone in the morning on Feb 2nd.
In the late evening on Feb 2nd 2012 Ex-Tropical Cyclone Iggy made landfall near Jurien Bay, 250km north of Western Australia’s capital Perth.
Gale force winds and high tides with rough surf affected some coastal sites near the Gascoyne town of Geraltdon. Beach erosion was observed and strong winds battered the coastal town throughout the day.

Remnants of Iggy hit areas around Perth. The coastal town of Lancelin, 140km N of Perth received almost 98.8mm of rain from 3pm Feb 2nd – 12am the following day.
Perth received 20.2mm.

The photo was taken at about 3am as Ex tropical cyclone Iggy was dumping his last bit of rain onto Perth.

Details
Canon 5d Mark II
24-105mm f4.0, No filters
A: f9
T: 45s
ISO: 50

All photos on this blog are available for purchase. If you are interested, or just want to enquire, please contact me via my contact page.