Australian Severe Weather Forum

A few pics from my local area in the past hour just after the rain stopped.

Near Eltham school



Eltham





Wilsons River at Booyong. Water was nearly 2 metres over the road and rising.







Hi Chris - yeah - you can attach one, post, then edit post to add more. Have not been able to work out the bug. MB

<a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMItQl-xLmE target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMItQl-xLmE</a>

Went out the the Belongil Spit at Byron Bay, it's blowing a gale. (2:40PM)

Second (and possibly third) small low is coming ashore along the Tweed Coast at present (530pm 21/5). Had 23mm here in 90 mins and the barometer dropped 3hpa in 30 mins !   Biggest drop I've seen. You can see the drops in the pressure in the Byron obs:

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60801/IDN60801.94599.shtml

(I'll save these later)

How's the radar atm - another cyclone !!   Third today to hit the same part of the coast

Power has been off for 3.5 hours here. 90mm since 9am now.....

Certainly is some wild weather out there I went and had a look at the crazy seas today and took some pics..waves were easily clearing the break walls around the jetty in Coffs.





The usually calm harbour is a raging mess





Waves were crashing on to this boat shed from the other side of the break wall



One of the many showers/storms coming ashore

Does look rather cyclonic on the radar doesn't it. Shame the charts aren't detailed enough to probably reflect the real level of the various lows. The wind diagram also looks rather interesting (and cyclonic).

While I am here might as well give a Sydney update. Some local flooding in places last night, Audley Weir as usual and a few spots around the northern beaches had road problems. But really any heavy showers have been overnight with very little during the day so far apart from yesterday from about 4pm. We did have one nice crack of thunder out of nowhere about 4pm yesterday. Today just a couple of light showers in the morning before 8am and tonight after about 6pm.

Hoping it doesn't get too nasty there in both Lismore and where I have friends in Coffs. The news reports of Brisbane and the Gold Coast looked nasty, furniture blowing off the top of high rises into the street. Probably luckily only one person has been killed by flying debris. But they did say winds were equivalent to a Force 2 hurricane.

North Lismore has been given the word to evacuate.

Lismore will be on tenterhooks with the predicted peak only 20cm below the levee. Where my parents used to live near the Showground would be nicely underwater by now, not sure if 10.4 would be in the house or still under it (it was one of those nicely built up Queenslander style ones).

With the rate of rise and the amount of water now coming down the Leycester Creek (which meets the Wilsons in Lismore) it is getting very touch and go for topping the CBD levee - only needs to rise another 40cm or so.

Power still off here - almost 17 hours, and phone decided it had had enough too. Amazing the ADSL works though.

Had one large tree come down and some others snapped off during the wild winds just before 6pm. The amount of debris on the roads is the most I've ever seen round here. goes to show what 3 small intense LOWs can do!

oh, and the cams and AWS are still running though intermittently due to the generator not always on.

http://australiasevereweather.com/video/webcam.htm

Gday All,

Well fortunately where I live in South Lismore was spared the worst of the flooding. Managed to get out and about this morning and grab some pics. 

Heard of a road collapse in Goonellabah, which is on top of the hill above Lismore itself. A normally placcid creek which runs under the road turned into a raging torrent last night and undermined the road. For those of you who have seen the youtube video of the road collapsing and the pipe coming up I'd imagine this would have been a very similar scene.

Oliver Avenue, Goonellabah



There is a walkway in there somewhere



The drainage pipe ended up a further 50m down from the collapse



Ventured into town to have a look around. Water in the usual low lying area of the basin.

Two cars either washed down or got stranded.



Junction of Leycester Creek and Wilsons River





Putt Putt anyone





Wilsons River, Ballina Street Bridge



Leycester Creek, Tuncester





Leycester Creek from the Robert White Bridge. Had to take a 10 shot panorama at 17mm to capture the full width of the river.



Ok so thats it. A rather nerve wracking event from my perspective, but thankfully we avoided the worst of it. It's only gunna be a matter of time before we get the real big one. When that happens is anyones guess but we are long overdue for a flood of 1974 proportions.

Hope you enjoy,

Cheers Jason

Words cannot justly describe what has and is happening over the last 48+ hours. My family has been fortunate, with a minor flood damage bill of a thousand or so  dollars ( being a builder we can repair the damage at minimal cost,) and only having the frustration of not being able to find any paper work that is now laying in every other room of the house.

And I say fortunate when you look at the damage caused by the floods and wind,to the roads, bridges, homes, schools, parks and businesses. The erosion of many of our beaches. The lose of a life of a Gold Coast real estate agent who was showered with glass, badly lacerated and went into cardiac arrest when his office window exploded after being hit by debris from another building. The high rise buildings on the Gold Coast acted as wind tunnels and as the 100 +km/h gale force winds blew it turned everday items into deadly flying missiles. It ripped off roofs, blew furniture of balconies, ripped the top off a camper van hurling it down 4 lanes of traffic. It was carnage every where. Now Northern NSW is facing the fury of these complex lows.

There is the  phsyclological and emotional stress of those who have lost nearly everything. Some have just rebuilt their lives and businesses from previous floods and storm damage from approx. six months ago, they have just once again lost everything, some do not know if they can go through the rebuilding process again.


The wave buoys in Brisbane and the Tweed have registered max heights of 11M. Byron and Ballina were reported at 13.4M by the Air sea rescue on the news bulletins last night and today.

As we approach the weekend SEQ and NSW is still on severe weather alert as the low is expected to move north. The report from BOM is

TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE BROADCAST
SEVERE WEATHER WARNING
for Damaging Winds, and Abnormally High Tides and Dangerous Surf
For people in coastal parts of the Southeast Coast forecast district and Fraser
Island.
Issued at 11:00 am on Friday 22 May 2009

Synoptic Situation:
A strong upper low is located over the Wide Bay and Burnett district and is
expected to move off the coast late today. A deep low pressure trough lies near
the northern NSW coast, and is expected to move north on Saturday. A strong
pressure gradient is in place between this system and a large high over the
southern Tasman Sea.

Dangerous surf conditions and beach erosion will continue along the Southeast
Coast, mainly along the Gold Coast today, extending north to Fraser Island
during Saturday. Tides will be higher than normal, and are expected to exceed
the highest tide level of the year on the evening high tides today and Saturday,
with some inundation of low lying areas possible.

Damaging winds with gusts to 100 km/h may develop about the exposed coast and
islands south of Double Island Point during Saturday.
The State Emergency Service advises that people in the affected area should:
 
· if near the coastline, stay well away from the water's edge
· secure loose outdoor items

Contact the SES on 132 500 for emergency assistance if required.


 
I truly hope everyone is OK and stay alert as this dangerous weather remains with us. It is now just starting to rain on the Northside of Brisbane once again after a nearly two days of reprieve. 

Stay safe

Colin 

hello all just one thing before i begin i have resized my pics to a minimum of 145kb so ill be doing a FEW posts.

wow i cant just believe the powe and furious winds we have been expiriencing here in ballina our hole town is just ruined just smashed....
the wind speeds last night knocked out our power for an amazing 15hours
here are the first 3 pics at the Golf course accross the road from us.

unfortunatley this one can only fit 2 images so here they are

so here are 3 more sorry for so many posts but i cant make the file sizes any smaller.

my second last post here are 2 more images the next post is the last.