Storm chaser Jason Paterson’s mum told him that he was born in a thunderstorm – and when he was young, he had an inherent fear of storms. But a desire to understand them and conquer fear turned into a passion for severe weather and weather photography.

From massive floods in Lismore to damaging hailstorms, Jason’s love of adrenaline has seen him drive toward severe weather systems with his camera and Go Pro in hand, ready to capture the destructive beauty of the weather.

One of Jason's photos.

Photography

Jason, along with Micheal Bath and other storm chasing locals, are contributors to the Northern NSW Severe Weather Facebook site. Their photos of storms and lightning are loved by many.

“Some chasers love to drive into a storm and get smashed by hail, wind and lightning,” Jason said. “Some of us like to sit back get idea of structure where it’s moving to - and sometimes go into the core.”

Core punching

Jason said the core of a storm is the most severe part of it and making your way into the centre of a storm is called core punching.

“It’s quite difficult to get into the core,” he said. “There might be limited road access and we try to get as close as we can.

Dangerous risk

“It is inherently dangerous, and we take a calculated risk when we do it – it can be dangerous, with cricket ball sized hail and 100km an hour winds and lightning strikes - and the sound is deafening.

“Sometimes chasers’ cars resemble gold balls after core punches and the hail dints the cars.

“I haven’t had the opportunity yet to chase a cyclone but would love to. They are a different beast, as they are a prolonged event and can go on for multiple hours.

“It’s a fun activity, but we say don’t do it if you don’t know what you are doing.”

One of Jason's photos.

Storm chasing

In 2007 Jason decided to team up with Michael Bath and Rodney Wallbridge to actively chase storms. Together, they visited the United States and Jason said his career highlights include trips to Tornado Alley in USA in 2012 and 2015.

Jason remembers the big hailstorm that hit Lismore in 2007 – on October 9. It was storm that cost car insurance companies a lot of money in payouts.

“Recently, we were in the Grafton area when there were 26,000 lightning strikes recorded and we were in the middle of it – it gets your heart racing.”

“When we are watching for storms to chase, we first identify a target and look at weather charts and find an area with some promise – as time gets closer, we refine the target and head out there. It’s not about seeing storm clouds – there’s science behind it.”

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Meteorologist Ben McBurney in the field photographing storms.

Weather forecasting

While he’s not a qualified meteorologist, Jason does forecast the weather. He and Michael Bath, along with James Harris, Rodney Wallbridge, Dan Stewart, John Graham, Rosie Kew, Dann Weatherhead, Ben McBurney and Justin Noonan are responsible for forecasting and analysing weather on the Northern NSW Severe Weather Facebook site.

Northern NSW Severe Weather founder

Michael Bath is known as one of the premier storm chasers in Australia. He is a weather forecaster who’s been working for 13 years with weather organisation the Early Warning Network. He’s also one of the original founders of the Northern NSW Severe Weather site.

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He will travel hundreds of kilometres to capture a storm and said he is one of the pioneers of storm chasing and photography.

“I have a nice group of friends involved with it and it’s good fun,” he said. “But there can be boring bits, like when you are waiting in a hot car for clouds to form.”

“We do snow chasing too - I went to the Northern Tablelands three times last year.

“I also love rain, sunsets and rainbows – we all love pics of weather not just severe thunderstorms.”

1987 Lismore flood

Michael said it was the 1987 flood in Lismore that inundated the CBD that caused his obsession with weather patterns leading to floods.

“I’d already been taking photos for the Ballina High School magazine and I used to mess around with time lapse photography,” he said.

Michael started analysing weather and storms in the late 1980s - before the internet took off and he used to rely on the evening news and newspaper satellite images for information. He would go out in the field and watch storms tracking and built up knowledge of how they formed.

Northern NSW Severe Weather

Jason said the Northern NSW Severe Weather Facebook site is a bit different to other weather pages.

“We have experienced forecasters and qualified meteorologists that voluntarily contribute,” Jason said. “We make forecasts, but don’t scaremonger like some of the other sites – we keep a level head."

Michael said providing highly accurate weather forecasting for local events was one of the priorities of the site.

Forecasts variation

“Compared to the Bureau of Meteorology, we take time to pull up multiple weather models and compare. We are the most reliable go to source for local weather,” Jason said.

To keep up to date with their photos and predictions, visit: https://www.facebook.com/nnswweather