Australian Severe Storms, Weather Events and Storm Chasing

[Richary]

Currently a severe storm warning for the Sydney area, with one small storm heading towards to Campbelltown and another larger one stretching between Richmond and Glenbrook (that is heading this way). The sky to the west is certainly lighting up fairly regularly though from this distance it all appears to be ICs.

Interestingly while it is severe warned for large hail it isn't going over light red on the radar. They may be expecting it to pick up a bit. Earlier storms today moved in a SW direction and hit the Illawarra region.

Storms are also forecast for the Sydney region tomorrow night as a front comes through according to 9 News. Maybe it's not quite over yet :-)

[Richary]

Starting to look pretty good, Jimmy would be getting a good show now. Starting to see some CGs and just had a nice pink crawler shoot overhead. Not quite dark enough or enough close lightning to be trying for photos just yet.

[wol]

Quite a light show indeed!

Some snaps taken from Blacktown, with the third pic of me watching the crawling lightening...

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

I was only able to head out this evening due to an appointment. I recorded on video that nice episode of quite intense and frequent lightning. I also tried to get whatever pictures - but it was simply too fast and in between. Just as it was heading into evening and just a tad drop in light - I got the following:



That was a quick reaction and just in time - one lightning in three branches. I could not believe my luck!




All photos for 25 March 2009

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Bath]

Are you on the roof for those shots Wol ?   A beautiful display of lightning from those Sydney storms last night. I was watching the radar and the tracker indicated the potential for sunset CGs.   Great to see you guys captured a few !

MB

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

I may get time today to edit the video and the stills - there were quite a few lightning bolts!

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Richary]

Great lightning bolts there Jimmy. I had less luck, as the storm approached here it split with one part going north of me and the other part heading off to Bankstown/Sutherland.

As it got dark and I tried to take photos I realised the best lightning was happing to my SW, the worst direction for photos from here. So I drove over to the other side of Ermington with a good view that way to see a few nice crawlers and CGs. Unluckily as the storm was over such a widespread area I never had the camera pointing the right way at the right time. Shortly after the rain started with enough wind I couldn't keep the camera dry under the umbrella and the NW storm was firing up more, so back home where I can look that direction out the back door. Once again I spotted a lot of lightning but didn't catch anything. By this stage instead of slow crawlers and strobing CGs the lightning had got a lot quicker making it harder to catch and it was also rain wrapped.

[wol]

Are you on the roof for those shots Wol ?   
MB

Yep, on top of our building next to the police station in Blacktown.
I think it's only three stories high.

[Jeff Brislane]

Hi all,

What a strange day it was yesterday. We had weaker storms move into the Sydney basin from the south during the day and later around 5-5:15pm a Low Precipitation cell developed south of Penrith with confirmed rotation and inflow bands. It was probably not long lived enough to clasify as a Supercell but it had all of the charicteristics for at least 30 minutes. It has a Low Precipitation style thin updraft and no rain from the updraft area but it could have been raining south of the updraft which I could not see from Penrith CBD.

Then the main storm developed on the lower mountains just north west of Penrith. It was a powerfull storm and it was a massive change from the weaker, ealier stuff. It was like all of a sudden CAPE was unleashed and it developed rapidly into Supercell status before splitting. The left mover obviously went north east across Windsor and the right mover went south east from Penrith towards Campbelltown.

I personally witnessed the split from Castlereagh and due to an appointment  > and I had no camera  > > I had to contend myself with watching the right moving cell move off to the south. I observed some very rapid flash flooding around southern Penrith consistent with rain rates in the area of 5-10mm per minute, absolutely phenominal, near constant and powerfull lightning and plenty of strong outflow wind.

All up it was a great storm, and it was a rare event for this time of year. I can't remember the last time we had such a powerfull storm in late March here in Sydney. I hope we get another storm tonight.

Jeff.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi Jeff,

From my observations, the right mover I saw began from near Richmond and moved south-southeast or due south almost. It clashed with a cell near the Penrith vicinity. the photograph of the multiple lightning bolt was taken looking south near this merger.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[nmoir]

i was in the penrith area about 1:30pm and watched some strong pulses with pileus on top of them , the pumped up a new pulse every fifteen minutes or so from a line of convection from lithgow to kiama , but initially the best cell was hanging west of oakdale so i went down there and got some nice mammatus then headed home about 5 only to see the sky light up later on , so went down to tempe and shot some anvil crawlers.

[Matthew Piper]

Hi all,

I first noticed the Penrith storm from my place in Prestons around 5:30-6pm and observed plenty of CG lightning along with a nice line of cumulus flowing into the storm itself. I also noticed the storm splitting and making a beeline for my place. Myself and my wife Lana took some photographs of it, however we were unable to capture any lightning on camera, no matter how hard we tried. Every time we stopped taking photographs there would be a great big CG :-( Unfortunately we weren't able to observe the storm constantly as it was dinner time and we needed to get our twins in bed. Once the twins were asleep I sat glued to the window looking at the amazing lightning display which was in progress just to my west around 7pm. One of the CG's I observed to the north of me at around 7:30pm must have pulsated 3 or 4 times for at least 1-2 seconds or so it seemed at the time. It was one of the best bolts I have seen for years. Would have loved to have captured that on the video camera :-(
 
Anyway all up it was an excellent storm and the best I have seen for a couple of years :-) Lots of heavy rain with it and some strong wind gusts, but no damage here. Further west though around Bringelly would have been a lot worse going by the frequency of the lightning I was observing.

[Colin Maitland]

Just looking throught the forecast for tomorrow, Brisbane right down through Northern NSW through to Maitland, have the possibility of thunderstorms developing through out the afternoon. Temps seem quite high from 29 - 31C, be ineteresting to see the SkewT for tomorrow.
I dont know if they will be severe, but the posiibility is there.

 Penrith and surrounds have one predicted for this evening

Col.

[Dave Nelson]

hi gang

    an excellent couple of days.
  Wed 25 March
1530 hrs EDT yesterday afternoon got down to the back of Camden ~ 5km SW of Camden, nice hilltop spot.
The cell was another 5km W to SW of me.  The storm went through several cycles of intensifying and dying off
only to reintensify again. Thia was observable in 2 ways ....
1) a good base forming, dissapating and reforming and
2) with each reform the lightning intensified significantly
  the lightning was pretty contineous for the ~ 1.5 hrs I sat and observed the storm.   There was a great number
 of branching CG's... really nice!
The other interesting thing was that the storm didnt really move very far till near the end when it started coming
 overhead and just got to Camden before it died out.
Later in the evening, went down to the wharf at the end of the street and watched the storms out to the west.
some really nice crawlers seen and videoed, many of them making it to overhead of home. 
Saw the Penrith cell split, and the the SE bound cell had a period of intensity with many good CG's and crawlers.

  Thur 26 March
 Back down to the wharf near home at 1600EDT ... its become one of my fave storm viewing sites...
watched the cell coming in from the SW  and a increasingly better looking base.   Most of the lightning was
CG's mainly single track single and strobe flashes.  And compared to yesterday only a few branching CG's
The base came directly overhead of my position. The lightning barrage came to an abrupt end with a
cracking CG just out onto the river ~ 100m from me.
The ceasation of the lightning was followed by ~ 10 mins of wind and torrential rain before the sun returned

cheers
Dave N

[Michael Bath]

Hi Jeff,

Have a look at the 25th March Sydney Radar Loop and the afternoon sounding. I'm not sure the setup was conducive for supercells. Almost no shear from the surface to the mid levels, although plenty of CAPE and the jet was present.

Has anyone seen any reports of large hail?

regards, Michael