Late Wet Season Storms hit the North West Kimberley

The past week I have been fortunate enough to be flying around the NW Kimberley region of Western Australia and being witness to some late wet season storm activity. I haven’t seen tropical development of storms too much in the past, so this was a real eye opener, and being up in the air just added to the drama of it all.

This cell was clear air underneath only minutes before, then the heavens opened, and this is what was in front of us.

Cumulonimbus cloud like this were skyrockets right up into the troposphere. A terrific sight to witness. 

Another cell dropping rain over the Mitchell Plateau

 

The weather was very humid and hot, and I was told  these were the typical conditions you would expect during the build up before the wet season begins. My work colleague Ed has lived up here for a while and knows that days on end of these hot, humid conditions that something is going to happen. On the final night of staying at our camp, the heavens opened and the lightning started from the south and moved very slowly directly over us. Lightning was all around, it was like I was at a nightclub with the strobes on full bore. I haven’t seen lightning like that for a very long time, so you could imagine I was like a kid at a candy store.

Storms starting to build just on sunset

 

The red glow of distant fire with another approaching thunderstorm

 

A very close bolt of lightning near our camp, completely blown out my exposure.

Another reasonably close bolt just south of the camp.

 

Lightning striking just to the north of the camp

 

 

The explosive cracks of thunder were incredible, the storms produced a lot of sheet lightning, of which seemed to have been occurring right above our camp. It was out of this world, and since it was the first decent thunderstorm I had seen for a couple of months I was on cloud nine seeing lightning and hearing it crash and bang around me.

Until next time……