Australian Severe Weather Forum

I'm going to ask a pertinent question, may have been answered already, maybe not.

I know that there have been numerous supercell storms (some tornadic) in NSW and QLD; but

Has anyone ever seen a tornadic supercell storm go through Melbourne VIC to anyone else's knowledge?

Big Pete
(suffering frost-bite from "warm winter")

Pete,

Personally I have seen little storm activity in Victoria period.

Brad Hannon has SMS'd me that there were tornadoes today in Victoria? I have not heard any media as yet.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

This year I believe you are quite true Jimmy, it was a truly poor season all round, with two decent lightning shows and not much else.

While the past few years have not been fantastic in Victoria, there have been supercell events, for example the system displayed in my profile showed all the hallmarks of being a supercell, and was identified as such by the BOM.

Going back a little further:

December 2004 saw 2 slow moving supercells over Melbourne drop 120mm of rain, following on from a day where numerous supercells occured across victoria, particularly in the melbourne region, with flash flooding, and common occurence of hail in excess of marble, with large golfballs being recorded in the Northern suburbs.

In the period since 2000 there have been at least 3 recorded tornadic supercells in Bendigo, with significant damage in two cases. If you check out some of Jane and Clyve from ASWAs reports you will find a couple of true supercell events on the Northern plains. There have also been a couple of Low-Precip SC systems to the W of Melbourne.

So I'd say that the occurence of supercells, particularly Tornadic is not very high in Victoria, however they do occur. Part of the reason for this is probably the frontal/midlatitude location: the ideal setups which occur in the North states are a result of slow moving, or repeditive moving troughs realising high amounts of instability...in Melbourne quite commonly a front will follow such conditions and blast them apart in a squall, rather than forming up deep organised convection. The situations where they do occur are characterised by a precisely located trough that moves into the Northern Plains sometime around early afternoon to kick things off.

And Jimmy I havent heard anything about tornadoes, though I will say given the shear and overlying cold mass its quite possible we had low-topped CBs (possibly cold SCs) form up and generate tornadoes with all the shear. Maybe ill have to pester brad into telling me what all the fuss is about.

Its damn cold down here atm.

haha its funny what you come across when you randomly surf the forum topics!

Some clarification is definately required here Jimmy!  my text message said something very similar to this "hahaha BOM's storm forecast for Melbourne today included tornadoes!"

That was the t-storm forecast as opposed to the standard public view general forecast and there were none that occured as far as I know.

Hi Big Pete, have I seen a tornadic supercell in Melbourne - not that I can confirm; have I seen a supercell - yes; have I seen a wallcloud - yes.  

I bagged this strong cell with persistent large rotating wall cloud on the Princes Hwy Geelong bound - unfortunately I have no data on it so cant confirm a supercellular status but is the closest I have seen to producing a tornado near Melbourne - inflow bands, twisting structure, large clear slot - all on a day when a tornado did touch down to the north at a similar time.  Go to page 4 of the forum topic: SE Aust Severe Storms (incl possible VIC tornadoes) 19 - 22 December 2007 to see the pics and report.

Also, John Allen advised me yesterday that last year a storm we viewed to Melbourne west has been classed as a supercell and the forum topic is: Melbourne Severe Storms - 4 Feb 2008 (my pics seem to be missing but the text is there and btw BP you saw the storm and commented in the thread)