June 9th 2011, during a chase on the previous a day a friend and I had got on a great storm which produced a big funnel cloud over the fields near Knockloughrim and we had yet to rule out the possibility of a touch down, on this day we had planned on returning to the area. However reports came in on Facebook of nasty hail stones affecting Swatragh which seemed strange at the time since the weather had been warm, calm, and sunny here all day with not a hint of anything convective in sight. The models showed a low CAPE-moderate shear set-up so low topped cells had in fact formed when the evening cap at broken so we went to the bottom of the road to check out the sky. This was in the countryside near Maghera looking N and NE, in view was that distant hail storm, moving L to R, with dark core over the fields to the R, half the core is in darkness and the other white in the sunshine. An elevated dark updraught base can be seen above and the two storm features contrasted beautifully against the sun-kissed fields below, it was a stunning high contrast scene which only nature can produce. We then got back on the road and returned to our previous day's funnel event where we spent the rest of the evening walking through fields looking for damage and knocking on doors in search of other eyewitnesses, a great Summer's day. * All images are available for sale in the form of photo prints, canvas or digital files for licensing, if you are interested in a purchase simply drop me an email.