We spent a relatively lazy, tourist-like morning in Melbourne, leaving our hotel just before midday and spending an hour paddling in the Atlantic and soaking up some rays on Melbourne Beach. We could afford to take some time out, because we were pretty sure we were in the right area for huge storm development during the afternoon. Lunch was of the classy variety, going large at McDonalds. As we left our eatery, the first popcorn storms of the day were firing a couple of miles inland from Melbourne, and the east coast sea breeze was already making its merry way inland.

We decided to travel several miles inland, through the narrow line of small storms, to await larger developments. Our final location was a long, straight and almost completely deserted road in western Brevard County. Temperatures were pushing the mid 30s as we sat in strong sunshine on the grassy verge. It wasn't long before further pulse thunderstorms developed, and at one point there were four separate storms all around us, as we remained in the sunshine. There was total silence, with not a car or anything even remotely human to be heard. The only sounds were crickets, birds and the chorus of four grumbling thunderstorms. We were living a charmed life, however, which wasn't to last. Just to our west, a new thunderstorm began to develop and looked much stronger than anything we'd seen during the day so far. Within half an hour, the storm unleashed overhead. Rain was torrential, and as we remained parked up, water was rising around the car as gullies filled. The storm dropped pea-sized hail as well, and at one point, three cloud-to-ground lightning strikes nailed the countryside around us in quick succession, none more than 500 metres away.

With the storm continuing to rage and the water continuing to rise, we decided to get out, and punched through the storm to the west to find clearer air. As we did so, Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm warnings suddenly appeared on storms to our south-west. There was now a distinct line of severe storms running from north of Melbourne to the south-west Gulf coast. We headed further southwards, our sights set on sunny conditions ahead of the thunderstorm line, on the north-east shore of Lake Okeechobee. After a couple of hours travelling, we arrived at our destination and were greeted with a spectacular sight.

A huge squall line was racing across the lake straight towards us. The storm had at least two gust fronts and a large shelf cloud, and was bright green in colour, suggesting hail. Lightning was searing down at the rate of a CG every ten seconds or so. However, Lake Okeechobee is an AWFUL place. You'd think that a large expanse of water like that would be the best place to watch a storm from. Well, it's surrounded by a 30ft high levee, and there is almost no access to the water side. So, we spent the entire storm watching it from a moving car and becoming increasingly angry that there was nowhere to stop. A beautiful sight wasted and another trip to Lake Okeechobee which has us vowing not to return.

With evening drawning in, we decided to make the 150 mile journey back to Bradenton. However, we learned that a tornado had touched down in Sebring in Highlands County, causing damage. Therefore, we detoured through the town of Sebring, and saw first-hand some of the damage produced by this small tornado. Trees were downed and there was damage to porches and fences. One house had its porch completely destroyed, with the panels of metal wrapped around nearby trees. As we continued home to Bradenton with fading light, we encountered some late-evening thunderstorms which developed on a west-moving outflow boundary over the Gulf Coast. All in all, it was a great day with some fantastic storms, but it was also very frustrating in its latter stages.