HECTIME – A brief introduction

31 October 2016

I am currently residing in Darwin, Australia, and figured it is about time that I write a post briefly explaining the ridiculousness I am up to. Basically it involves a LOT of hanging around in a coastal park in Nightcliff. HECTIME stands (loosely) for the HEctor the Convector TIme-lapse and Modelling Experiment. Hector is the name for a large thunderstorm, or thunderstorm complex that develops over the Tiwi Islands (Northern Territory, Australia) on most afternoons during the pre-monsoon season – October-November-December.

New Zealand North Island bike tour, days 26 to 29: Around the south and east of Ruapehu

1 April 2016 (day 26): Conifer camp to Snowy Lodge
The weather was soon to turn pear-shaped over the next day or two.

Sunshine Coast to Sydney bike tour days 1-8: Buderim to Gold Coast

29 May, day 1: Buderim to Glass House
I was in tears as I left my sister Fio and her family in Buderim, I lost control of my emotion in the hallway.

New Zealand, North Island bike tour, days 21 to 23: Exploring west of Ruapehu

Day 21, Mar 27: Onto the western flanks of Tongoriro
I awoke at the camp by the shore of Lake Taupo and took a cleansing swim, with associated easily stirred volcanic sand debris.

New Zealand, North Island tour – days 18 to 20: The Turangi magnet

24 Mar: rain camp by lake Taupo near Turangi

Was frustratingly tent-bound in persistent drizzle to start with. Then the forecast heavy rain arrived later in the morning. At times it was a real downpour and some water did get into the tent.

New Zealand, North Island tour – days 13 to 17: Lake Taupo

Day 13-14, 19 to 20 Mar: At Clair’s

Had a nice relaxing time with Clair Ellis on these days. She took me to Huka Falls

Huka Falls

Clair told me her amazing and scary experience during an eruption of Ruapehu back when she had a sheep farm. The ash blanketed the farm and the sheep could not eat the grass. Thankfully in the end they scraped through and only lost a few sheep.

Halifax storms part 4: Juno

27 January 2015

I was granted my favourite type of birthday present in 2015, a snowstorm. A large low pressure system (a nor’easter named Juno) pushed into the freezing Canadian airmass.

The Echuca storm chase

I’ll start this post by sharing some time lapses (above) from this great storm chase day put together to the track Default by Atoms for Peace. Please select 1080p option pump up the volume and go fullscreen (sounds like a philosophy for life ;D).

11 October Melbourne thunderstorm time-lapse

Had some afternoon fun last Sunday watching a thunderstorm from a favourite viewing spot in Parkville. In other news have been watching Bojack Horseman. There is an amazing scene in season 2 episode 11 as Bojack rides home to LA on a deck chair drinking beer on his new boat (on a trailer), with great music by the Black Keys. Anyway decided to use this music in the time-lapse below hopefully won’t have copyright issues. I like the brass intruments coming in as the storm breaks free. The video shows an outflow boundary roll cloud rolling in from the west. This is from a pool of cold air that formed under earlier thunderstorms that sweeped across as a wave (shown in the second segment in the video).

15 June great dawn

Wow I woke up way too early on this day.