Back to trucks ......venture out onto Gunn Point road and watch the huge 'bull dust' trails go flying as one of the 4 wagon road trains hurtle past....It's blindness all around for several minutes as the red dust cloud dissipates (Bull Dust). After that we venture out onto the 'wet-lands' (still dry) at Fogg Dam and wait for the tropical showers to get started in the afternoon....the airmass is still rather dry from a brief southeast-trade surge the day before, by 4pm a couple get going with their small but spectacular rain-shafts and we play around between them...only for weather nutters, eventually they die out and we head back to Darwin for another soppy sunset.....

Report: Clyve Herbert

Photography: Jane ONeill / Clyve Herbert

Pilot boat chasing a departing ship - Darwin Harbour

Weird coloured rock and distant cumulonimbus - Beagle Gulf

One of the many magnificent small inlets, Nightcliff

Nightcliff

Tree roots in mid air, Nightcliff

4 wagon road train & bulldust, Gunn Point Road

Nightcliff jetty

Tropical showers get going, Fogg Dam

These small isolated tropical showers were real gushers

The showers barely lasted more than 15 minutes then virtually disappeared

Tropical shower sequence Fogg Dam

Although their tops reach barely 25,000', they produce spectacular rainshafts and rain out in minutes

Tropical shower raining out

Towards evening a larger convective complex gets going near Windows on the Wetlands complete with small flanking line

They produce stupendous updrafts...then a deluge

The updraft separates from the rainshaft

This tropical shower produced a surprisingly strong microburst

Waiting for the next shower

Ooooh, look!! a rainbow!

5 minute flash flood

...another Darwin sunset