Author Topic: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season  (Read 26603 times)

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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #30 on: 07 March 2007, 04:35:26 AM »
Some pics of the Jabiru floods the other day.  They copped over 300mm and the rivers were up, up, up!  Check out the feral pig on the bridge! (shotgun anyone?).

Mike
Edit: Source of pictures unknown.
« Last Edit: 07 March 2007, 03:34:15 PM by Jimmy Deguara »
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Offline Jimmy Deguara

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #31 on: 07 March 2007, 11:01:04 AM »
Hi Mike,

Gee it is good to see northern Australia back to normal - late season though! We are finally getting the moisture.

Did you take those pics yourself?

Not even a flood could destroy a pest animal!

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #32 on: 07 March 2007, 11:30:16 AM »
Ha!  Right on the money re the pig! They look nice and cute when young but they still get run over and shot at. (not by me!) Nope, can't claim honours for the pics - i'd still be stranded you see....lots of people claiming it was 'my brother' who took the pics, so no, i do not know who took them.

 The rivers have subsided a tad since then, they had crocs and all sorts of things stuck on bridges (true!).  We're back in the 'dry' stage between monsoon troughs, so now i get to have the storms out again in the arvo's.

Our rainfall total is up to par now , we started off really 'dry' but all this rain has topped things up.  That TC George off WA looks to go to CAT5, certainly a decent system after all.
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #33 on: 08 March 2007, 07:26:08 AM »
Here's some more photos of the South Alligator, West Alligator and Adelaide River flooding due to that Low - now TC George.  As you can see this area is very low lying and when you get an average of 1000mm in a catchment area, the water has to go somewhere!  The road damage is equally impressive - all that just from water flowing constantly over the bridge.

Mike

Edit: Source of pictures unknown.
« Last Edit: 08 March 2007, 11:00:42 AM by Jimmy Deguara »
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #34 on: 13 March 2007, 04:44:30 AM »
Some storm action that we've had of late.  Some nice big storms have come through, These two shots taken Satdy arvo before work as it moved W to E.  We've had some really nice severe storms with huge amounts of lightning with them - strong winds, just flash flooding type rains.

My daughter caught a line of storms coming in from the South on the radar last night, but the closer they got to us the more they peterred out.  We chased for about an hour doing one large loop around the storms, but as would have it, rain eventually overtook us no matter which way we headed.  So we ended up home watching some storm chase DVDs from a fellow forum member - she was rapted with that!


Mike
« Last Edit: 13 March 2007, 05:03:05 AM by Mike »
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #35 on: 14 March 2007, 07:47:11 AM »
Here's some info for those that want to know how our weather works during the monsoon and when the 'active' period returns.  i posed the question re tropical lows and the 'dry' period between monsoon troughs and what time period lapsed between monsoon events here:

(Thanks to severe weather meteorologist Michael Foley for this info.)

'If there are no lows/cyclones in the monsoon trough, weather activity tends to be distributed along the length of the trough; when a low or cyclone develops, the activity tends to "clump" around these focal points, with less weather activity in between; therefore if it is a situation where there has been a depression/TC which has moved away from the NT, we will then be in the less active part of the trough.  The trough may become more active again when the system has moved far enough away or dissipated.  Another thing which will renew activity in the trough is a renewed surge of the monsoon northwesterlies to the north of the trough; this is often correlated with the arrival of a new active phase of the Madden-Julian Oscillation which circles the globe every 30 to 60 days.

Mike.
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #36 on: 15 March 2007, 07:00:37 AM »
Here's some past photos I thought I'd post since I have nothing better to do....I especially like my bubbling towers with the rain and lightning above them!

Mike
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Offline Jimmy Deguara

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #37 on: 15 March 2007, 12:15:39 PM »
Mike,

Nice anvil crawler activity - were those of a complex of thunderstorms passing over during the night?

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #38 on: 15 March 2007, 12:28:31 PM »
Absolutely, Jimmy! 

The pic with a lot of contrast and depth of trees, rain, lightning and the towers bubbling away was a very long line of storms that hung around for about 2 hours.  That night I obtained about 125 photos and dare i say it - got bored!  I thought they were multicells as there were anvils aloft not attached to those bubbling towers below as in the pic and those lower storms were feeding the larger cells.

There was no lightning activity from these smaller towers and most of the crawlers were aloft higher up.   There was so much electrical activity that night, it was just superb to just watch it. 

Have included some more just for the hell of it...

Mike
« Last Edit: 16 March 2007, 05:39:48 AM by Mike »
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #39 on: 27 March 2007, 06:12:05 AM »
At last some storms!  Nice cell across the harbour so during the tea break at my second job i whipped out the camera.  Cell lasted for over an hour so presuming it had decent updraft to assist it.  Was the only storm in the area and I've been starved of storms for two weeks!  Here's some happy snaps - made my week!  Would have posted more but files too big.  They don't show major CGs as they were on the other side of the harbour which my view was being obscured - but you get what you get and got some nice panoramic shots with crawlers up the top.

Mike
« Last Edit: 27 March 2007, 06:21:15 AM by Mike »
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season/March-April
« Reply #40 on: 31 March 2007, 04:34:08 PM »
Well news is if the monsoon does not return by mid-April that's it for another storm season here in Darwin :(

Next week we'll have the dreaded easterlies dominating and that only means one thing - no weather!  Sunday and Monday may be it for storms.  Had some nice storms around tonight and got a great stattaco about 2km from me.  was just about to put the camera away and had second thoughts and one more go - a voila! 

Hope you guys enjoyed the updates from up here....certainly enjoyed posting them for you.

Mike
« Last Edit: 01 April 2007, 08:37:18 AM by Michael Bath »
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Offline Michael Bath

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #41 on: 01 April 2007, 08:38:38 AM »
What a nice way to end the season with that CG !   Hopefully there will still be some weather around for a little longer.

regards, Michael
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Offline Jimmy Deguara

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #42 on: 01 April 2007, 09:03:31 AM »
Mike,

Somehow in the initial check, I had not ovbserved that lightning bolt. Quite a tall staccato!

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #43 on: 01 April 2007, 10:56:51 AM »
Thanks Mike B for posting the pic - blasted computers!

 The storm was producing a fair bit of sheet rubbish and I just gave up in the end and as i said I felt the change of wind and thought...mmmm maybe one more go.  As soon as i set the camera up and opened the shutter this thing blasted in front of me - I was so inwardly overjoyed i think i pee'd myself! 

I keep looking at it and noticing that it went from the cloud right to the ground this time! Oh man, i just love it when you get a reward like this!

Bit of storm activity around this arvo - definitely humid and hot - but will go out anyway and try my luck later when it's dark.  I'm taking every opportunity to get something before the wet goes dry - Aaaargh!

Mke
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Offline Mike

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Re: Monsoonal activity 2006/07 season
« Reply #44 on: 04 April 2007, 03:36:16 AM »
Re March 1 thunderstorm/supercell event for pre TC George.

Finally got some info from contact at the Met office here re the deepening low that passed us by this day.  I'll copy type it word for word.  Some interesting comments to say the least!  Thanks to Greg Browning at the Severe Weather Section, Darwin Met Office.

"Ive also had a quick revisit of the !st March event and the later sounding shows no appreciable difference to the morning trace, if anything there is a bit more warming at 11Z.

The morning's sounding though gave an indication for all the ingredients needed to generate the kind of storms that could produce that amount of lighting you witnessed (and I enjoyed!).  Analysis yielded CAPE over 4000j/kg, LI of -6.9C, mid/low Level shear (1000 to 10,000ft) of 147/67, steering wind of 40+ knots etc.  As one Paul Keating would have said...those are beautiful numbers!

On top of this the main line of storms came through that night was associated with the outer convective rainbands of pre TC George and so extra vorticity and convergence also added to the mix, recall this was the environment that produced the high F2 tornado in Kakadu NP.

The sounding also showed some low level dry are due to sub-FZL evaporation of the considerablerain falling at thetime - which likely contributed to some explosive updrafts after the LL environment was eventually modified to the requisite degree.

So you had major instability contributing to the explosive updrafts along a favoured convergence line, shear and steering winds conductive to extensive and continued propagation along a wide swath and for a significant period of time. There were numerous strong cells embedded in the main rainband and their conmined effect was the almost continuous lightning that you saw.
"

I also commented to him that thankfully I have been studying the last 6 months and knew what he was talking about, phew!

Mike
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