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Storm chasing is mostly decisions, not lightning. On Saturday 15 November 2025 a chase ran from 10 in the morning until 10:30 at night — twelve and a half hours on the road out of Sydney. The models were awkward that day, so nothing was taken for granted. Possible targets were weighed up: Goulburn and Canberra, the Mudgee district, Scone and the Hunter Valley, even the Northern Tablelands. Mudgee was picked on the basis that an upper pool of cold air was forecast to cross late in the day and lift the atmosphere. That cold pool never really arrived, and by later in the day the chase was shaping up as a bust. It was saved by a hail storm in paddocks between Ulan and Turil, north east of Mudgee. Earlier in the day the first cells were intercepted near Ilford on the Castlereagh Highway — modest storms at first, with a hail shaft visible to the east along the Ilford and Sofala Road, though it could not be reached in time.
