Australian Severe Weather Forum

Hi all,

An impressive rainband with storms is entering W Victoria this morning and heading E and SE.  Scattered t-storms are forecast for most of the state with some areas now forecast as likely for storms.  Models were suggesting LI's of 0 to -2 for areas nth of Melbourne later in the day with a very very modest 200 CAPE.  Lots of moisture around and plenty of sun to warm the surface combined with northerlies.  Certainly expecting some reasonable falls and hopefully some storm action, dare I say severe........

Had some nice storms in Adelaide earlier today (at 5am, of all times to be woken on a Sunday by thunder).

Made a very nice change, although there was some nice lightning around a couple of nights ago. Here's hoping Victoria gets a nice show as well.

SA Currently has a Severe Thunderstorm Warning in place, I expect Victoria will issue one by dawn.

Based on BoM site, both North Western Vic and the Pastoral Districts of SA are both under severe thunderstorm warnings (hailstones, damaging winds, flash flooding) - by the way the weather is appearing at Box Hill VIC at the moment, there is something strong brewing to the NW - clouds are quite dark in that direction. (Hopefully this attached pic works: )

According the the BoM radar, things are looking up for NW Vic - nice storms firing in a line thru Mildura at the moment (5:04pm), and the trough/front is approaching metro Melbourne and Geelong - looks like we will get some heavy downpours at long last - hope to get some storm pics when I head home later this evening.

Big Pete
(umbrella up)

(nice to see my 2mpx camera phone pics do work in these posts - yay)

A large but relatively weak rainband has moved eastward through the state leaving behind clearing skies and increased DP's which hopefully will feed into storms this evening and overnight as the trough moves in.  Some impressive lightning active storms have formed in the west and the BOM has issued this updated thunderstorm forecast and anticipate the severe threat moving into the central region later.  The radar image shows the rainband, clearing and the storms out west.

Well, true to form the powerful Melbourne stormshield kicked in last night to keep our skies pretty tame.  Overall, a very disappointing event for central areas but from all accounts, the afternoon cell SW of Horsham was a beauty although I am yet to see any photos of it.  Last night I went out to the airport areas and viewed some weak cells moving across the western and northern parts of the suburbs up until midnight.  There were some distant CG's and plenty of ragged low mammatus and a short shelf-like formation from what I guess was a weak cold air push as can be seen in my shots below.  All the convection moved out to the Tasman Sea and she was all over

I will post this shot here as it was part of the same system that caused the Vic storms. Even though it was in Adelaide.

Found on the Adelaide Advertiser news page, nice daytime/dusk lightning shot.

"Lightning over Outer Harbour photographed from the edge of the St Kilda channel on Sunday. Picture: ROSS FELIX"

Very nice shot.

I wouldn't be surprised if Adelaide got more storms tonight since there is a ton of lightning activity over SA moving east.

Here is a link to a post on WZ with some great photos of the Horsham cell showing low base features and mentioning weak rotation was evident at the time.  BOM Radar for the time (8.30-11.00 UTC) is certainly interesting with a possible right move SW of Horsham which I noticed at the time (I was watching WZ radar), so to see the pics is cool.  Im guessing supercell based on obs from chasers, radar and now the pics showing a rather severe looking cell but I know none of that is confirmation - what are others thoughts on whether this was a supercell?  Michael/Jimmy let me know if you'd prefer that links such as this were not posted here or if you'd prefer them presented in another way.

http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=17;t=000463;p=5

Brad.

A few days ago a couple of photos were shown of a tornado near Spalding on the Ch 10 news...
Through Jane Reilly I have been able to get in contact with the photographer and he has given permission for me to put them up here for you all to see....
  The photographer is Chris Kuchel. 

Some of his comments:
  The photo’s attached were taken  2.00 p.m. Sunday 2/11/2008 from SPALDING, facing west south west and appeared to be about 10 to 15 k’s from town.

About 20 mins after taking the photo’s we got about 6 to 8 mms of rain and hail about 1 cm in diameter.

It’s quite probable the twister did touch down, but the area in which it was seen is fairly inhospitable hilly country and not overly populated (farm country). I think I said in my email that it did seem to change the direction of the weather pattern. I checked Bom website prior and saw that the low front was going to pass us, but after the twister disappeared the front travelled due east and hit us pretty hard. Hail is fairly rare up here especially during the day, but to have almost a cm size hail stones was unbelievable.   

   

   

Thanks for posting the photos and description Tim !

You can see the line of activity develop and pass over Spalding on the radar loop. Looks like convergence and a landspout type tornado. Adelaide sounding is rather nice - no wonder there were severe storms around the region.


---> Buckland Park radar loop