Australian Severe Storms, Weather Events and Storm Chasing

[Michael Bath]

Hi all

Been quite a bit of activity through Victoria, a large part of NSW and parts of TAS already today. Some great rainfalls in central VIC with many locations in the 15 to 25mm range as a pre frontal trough and cold front moves east.

Warnings have been out since late morning. Some inconsistency in the warning products this arvo with the NSW warning including winds/flash flooding while the VIC warnings has large hail/flash flooding ...

Next few days look active in parts of the east.

[FindTheTornado]

Every now and then I check in and see whats going on in Australia and I just happend to notice the severe thunderstorm warning out and went to the Yarrawonga radar site. Several storms showing up there some look very strong. Have a nice day.

[TroyVR]

Nice storm passed over the Sutherland area between 4-5 dropping 2mm of rain with it, Got some nice photos of the storm passing over, some intermittent lightning was in the storm but unfortunetly it was hidden by the rain.

[Richary]

This afternoon's storms came over but the main part tracked well south of here (Rydalmere), though as I was coming home down Windsor Road I could see a nice core of rain down towards Bankstown. Not much here. The later ones that have been going for a bit over an hour provided lots of lightning but all up in the clouds (I suspect above a thin lower layer of cloud) and very few ground strikes. Very few bolts were visible. It bucketed down for a while but I only recorded 10mm, surprising as Olympic Park not that far away got over 20.

The storms is now off to the NNE and now has better lightning than it did when near here with a few more ground strikes than we got.

EDIT: 9 News had a nice view of a shelf cloud to the south of the Harbour from their chopper on the weather report.

[TroyVR]

This afternoon's storms came over but the main part tracked well south of here (Rydalmere), though as I was coming home down Windsor Road I could see a nice core of rain down towards Bankstown. Not much here. The later ones that have been going for a bit over an hour provided lots of lightning but all up in the clouds (I suspect above a thin lower layer of cloud) and very few ground strikes. Very few bolts were visible. It bucketed down for a while but I only recorded 10mm, surprising as Olympic Park not that far away got over 20.

The storms is now off to the NNE and now has better lightning than it did when near here with a few more ground strikes than we got.

yes we got similar conditions here with the later storms

At first it bucketed down very heavily before lightening up for the the massive lightning display, although as Richary said most of the lightning was intracloud i did still see a few nice strikes and some beautiful bolts, unfortunetly i wasnt able to go and get photos of the 2nd storm as i had been drinking and camera batteries were flat. Also i recorded 8mm of rain from the 2nd set of storms.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

I was contacted by David Croan that he enjoyed some very impressive and frequent lightning activity this evening. We missed out on most of the lightning but I was able to capture a few pictures of lightning:

[pingtang]

March 13 2009 lightning off Nowra

Some weak storms developed off the Illawarra coast on Friday evening continuing throughout the night. These storms would shoot up an updraft and drop a barrage before weakening,this cycle seemed to repeat itself through the coarse of the night. The lightning was very impressive, with numerous high quality cgs observed including alot of CA bolts. Unfortunately the storm was 50kms away from us at first,but amazingly still close enough to hear some distant booms coming off the water. I put the 70-200mm lens on,and grabbed some decent photos.









March 14 2009 Gerringong and then Ulladulla

Today's chase started off quite well. With storms developing on the Southern Highlands we made the decision to intercept these storms between Kiama and Gerringong. We found a good view and watched a weak storm move off the escarpment. Eventually a nice guster came into view making for some nice timelapse.



There was alot of lightning,but unfortunately all of the bolts were well behind the guster and rainwrapped. As the storm moved overhead,we found a bus shelter and hoped to nail a ridiculous flang on video. Unfortunately there were no flangs,but there were plenty of bolts within 2-3km with nice booms. The outflow became quite gusty for a while possibly reaching 60km/hr,rainfall was never that heavy.

As the storm moved offshore,we went to the beach in the hope of some cgs on video,this proved quite successful. The storm turned very lightning active producing some high quality staccato cgs many of which were captured on video.

Once the Gerringong storm had finished we pushed southwards in the hope of intercepting the Ulladulla storms. It looked great on radar,and we were confident of some great lightning but it proved to be a HUGE letdown. We only witnessed a handful of cgs and numerous pink ccs. Another cell moved in from the west briefly producing some nice cgs some within 2kms creating great booms. Unfortunately this was heavily embedded,so we found a shelter in Mollymook. Unfortunately,the good lightning stopped as soon as we pulled the cameras out leaving me with this dissapointing pic.



Cheers
Michael

[James]

Great storms everyone, nice to see Sydney/Illawarra finally got some storms yesterday. For a while there, I thought the Illawarra would never see storms again.

I would imagine storms will fire late today in the Northern Rivers today, perhaps after 5pm. Mlaps doesn't want anything to do with precip falling in far SEQ whilst Laps shows precip from after 06z. 500 temps cool down from around 5pm with a small increase in 700 winds from the SW. This may be enough to get storms further north.

I'm hoping for a evening/overnight light show here before the main action starts tomorrow with a bit more wind shear.

[Harley Pearman]

Afternoon thunderstorms in North East Victoria turned deadly 14/3/2009. I found this article in the Border Mail:-

"Mum dead in freak accident" - Border Mail 15/3/2009 at:-

http://www.bordermail.com.au/news/local/news/general/mum-dead-in-freak-accident/1459497.aspx

A 39 year old died at Bright at 2.30 pm after being struck by lightning at the Bright Pony Club. Another person was injured and taken to Wangaratta.

I was taking particular interest 14/3/2009 of thunderstorms in North East Victoria and southern New South Wales. Short but fast moving thunderstorms with some containing hail for short periods of time moved through the region. Albury was hit by up to 4 fast moving thunderstorms that dropped 11.6 mm of rain at the airport weather station between 2 pm and 7 pm.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued warnings for these thunderstorms across North East Victoria and southern NSW.

The town of Narrandera in the Riverina scored 14 mm from one thunderstorm.

The benefit of these thunderstorms is that the upper catchment of the Ovens River in North East Victoria (Where the town of Bright lies) scored some good rainfalls that may produce runoff into streams with some falls in the 20 to 32 mm range.

A thunderstorm also occurred over Sydney 14/3/2009 between 7 and 9 pm although I was out with friends so I could not go after it or take photos of it. I was at Baulkham Hills driving to Castle Towers and the rain was not heavy where I was although it was heavier in other places. I mainly saw intra cloud lightning when driving towards Castle Towers. Looking at the Bureau of Meteorology weather stations for this event:-

Seven Hills and Strathfield scored the heaviest rainfall of 28 mm but only 8.5 mm where I was. Other falls include:-

Bankstown 27 mm, Warragamba Dam 26 mm, Toongabbie 24 mm, Sydney Olympic Park 23 mm, Auburn 22 mm, North Parramatta 20 mm, Prospect Dam 18 mm, Richmond 14 mm, Penrith 10 mm.

The storm appears to have peaked around the Seven Hills to Auburn area. I cannot comment too much on it because I was indoors for much of the time.

Harley Pearman

[Jeff Brislane]

Hi All,

I wasn't paying much attention yesterday to the storms that developed over the mountains until I started hearing thunder. I went outside and wished I has gone out earlier as the first cell that passed just south of Penrith had some very interesting structure and evidence of possible rotation. I could see what appeared to be a well defined notch on this storm with the heavy rain area to it's north west. The cloud in the inflow notch area was extreemly green and the motion in the cloud base was very strong. I went in and grabbed my camera and drove to a nearby clearing but it was too late for the most impressive structure.

The second line of cells produced some very powerful lightning which has been a common feature of early march storms in Sydney in recent years.

Jeff.

[Shaun Galman]

Hi guys,
Great to see a bit of captured action from around the states! Nice lightning captures also :D
We had a small but high-based cell form over town yesterday. Nothing as far as lightning but a real nice little RFB on the northern edge for a time. Only a brief shower of rain that didn't even register lol. Temps are still quite warm out here, around the 36-38c mark.

There have been quite a few storms out west (near Bourke and Cobar) lately. We have only just seen distant cells on the horizon from these recent systems unfortunately. Not even worth getting the camera out for?

I'm hoping for a last decent "big" storm to say goodbye to Lightning Ridge with as we are in the middle of a house move to Southern NSW (near Tumut or there abouts)
I will be intermittent until we get down there and settled in again so please excuse my lack of Upper Western/North West storm info for the time being. I sold my pc so I'm relying on my laptop for now, minus photo processing software?

Take care and kindest regards,
Shauno.

[Richary]

While Sydney missed out today with the Central Coast, Hunter and further north getting the action - one has developed off the coast and intensifying as it moves out to sea. Currently about 60km offshore but even from here it is lighting up continuously with ICs - if there are any grand strikes I am too far away to see them though someone in a more coastal location might get a better view. Pretty nice view even from about 90km away.

[Antonio (stormboy)]

a real deal of storms south from us here Ballina. strong cells and moving northeast

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi all,

Had a half decent chase today. I left home very late - by  1:00pm and headed up the Freeway. Storms had begun developing in the Hunter but I decided to leave this once I saw a congesting cumulus to the north. My target was the coastal areas generally east of Maitland. This cluster eventually exploded with very thick anvil eventually showing. The storm became severe very quickly and a split occurred - photographed!

Further north, I intercepted hailstones near the turnoff of the Thunderbolts Way and Pacific Highway. Some large hailstones were spitting out of the anvil of the order of 2 to 3cm in diameter. The main core remained west of the highway until just south of Bulahdelah. The storm then gradually weakened and collapsed. I forgot to me mention that is did develop an interesting updraft in the last hour of its life cycle.

Further west, more rapid development of updrafts organised into a line and approached Bulahdelah. It produced a spectacular shelf cloud structure though this also gradually gusted out.

I was treated to a display of constant thunder later on.

Photographs further in this thread

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Richary]

Hi Jimmy

An interesting side effect to the storms was enhanced FM conditions to Grafton. I was hearing 2JJJ 91.5 in short meteor scatter like bursts of signal. This is a known propagation method called lightning scatter but the first time I have experienced it. The storms either near Newcastle or further north near Crescent Head at the time would have been responsible. The signal reflects briefly off the ionised air trail left by the lightning bolt.

Note this would not be audible on a normal FM radio/car radio setup. A good receiver and high gain antenna are needed.