Picture perfect storm snapped

Photos

Wild weather from Qld and NSW

View Photo Gallery »

Photos

Images of 2009

View Photo Gallery »

WHEN it comes to taking weather photos regular Ocean Shores visitor Kathryn Lynch is simply addicted.

And it seems her efforts have paid off.

Her stunning snap of an approaching thunderstorm, looming menacingly behind New Brighton Beach on December 30 last year, has been published in the 2010 Bureau of Meteorology’s weather calendar, which will be distributed to 60,000 eager customers worldwide.

Kathryn, a Sydney native, has been visiting her sister, Julie Hannigan, at her Ocean Shore’s home for the past 30 years.

“I love the North Coast,” she said. “I come up several times a year and I take pictures there all the time.

“Spring and summer are my favourite seasons. And I love the storm season.”

With 20,000 images on her computer, most of them weather related, Ms Lynch said she was something of a weather nut, consulting the bureau’s weather radar several times a day.

“I’ll be cooking dinner for the kids and looking at the weather radar at the same time and then suddenly I’m gone. And the kids will say, ‘she’s off taking pictures of another storm’.

The bureau’s publicity officer, Mark Jenkin, said the calendar annually attracted 500 photographic entries, which were eventually whittled down to just 12 stunning images.

“We try to get a representative sample from each state, and include a nice range of colours – like stunning red sunsets and blue ocean scenes,” he said. “And we always look for good quality.”

In past editions of the calendar, McLeans Ridges storm chaser Michael Bath and his storm-chasing partner Dave Ellem, from Alstonville, have both had their pictures published.