Storm Australian Severe Weather Forum
Severe Weather Discussion => Australian Severe Storms, Weather Events and Storm Chasing => Topic started by: Michael Bath on 18 April 2008, 10:34:05 AM
-
The coastal showers have been hanging around NSW coastal locations the past couple of days, but the wet weather looks set to increase as a strong high pressure system becomes established over Tasmania and the Southern Tasman Sea. Models are forecasting an upper level trough and/or cold pool to persist over eastern NSW for several days. This will create instability and probably lead to rain periods and some embedded thunderstorms - particularly in coastal areas - with strong winds too.
-
Yeah...it certainly looks interesting. I was toying with the idea about putting out a media release about it, but then chickened out a bit when this afternoon's model runs dropped the totals back and held most of the heaviest rain offshore. There should still be some 100mm+ totals along the northern NSW coast, though, which will bump a few locations into record April monthly total contention.
-
Looks nice, although coastal showers aren't welcomed. Any chance Brisbane's dams scoring 50+ mm from this?
-
According to 9 news weather tonight, only 5mm over Warragamba in the last week, despite suburbs closer to the coast getting a lot more (about 30mm here for the week). And ones on the coast got a lot more. Standard for Sydney though.
-
Last night's Brisbane sounding shows a marked increase in moisture since yesterday morning and a deep SE flow has become established. 40mm at my location in 23 hours to 8am, and 42mm at Rodney's - check AWS updates from these pages:
http://australiasevereweather.com/video/webcam.htm
http://australiasevereweather.com/links/richmond_hill/aws.html
Steven - I'd be surprised if the Brisbane catchment does not receive at least 50mm over the next several days, though the setup does very much favour coastal locations at this stage.
-
At least two cumulonimbus amongst the showers this morning - one west of Byron Bay and the other around Coraki - could see the tops of that and the lightning tracker picked up a couple of bolts.
Ballina AP is up to 377mm for the month. The record at that site is 456mm in 2003 but the site only started in 1992. The old Ballina site had 657mm in 1988 - one I remember as I was living there at the time. Prolonging major flooding of the Lower Richmond River occurred.
The old Lismore (Centre Street) site had two consequent wet Aprils in the late 1980s: 529mm in 1988 and 514mm in 1989. 2nd April 1989 saw the biggest flood in Lismore since 1974. Another downpour later in the month gave a moderate flood peak of the Wilsons River in Lismore.
edit: Highest rainfalls 24 hours to 9am 18 April
Upper Springbrook 46mm
Goonengerry 60mm
Repentence 60mm
Nashua 52mm
-
I received a welcome 46.5mm up till 9am this morning. On top of that I've received another 11mm since 9am, with the majority of that falling in the last hour from a sustained moderate to heavy shower. Looks like its going to be a wet few days ahead, so will be interesting to see much will fall. Hope it gets to where its needed most ;)
-
Hello
Between 11 am and 1 pm today I was observing a narrow band of showers moving across southern and south central areas of Sydney similar to a train effect echo.
Similar to a series of train cars moving past one station, the showers were moving across one particular area of Sydney in succession. This was an ongoing effect for a few hours. Suburbs on either side of the shower band had light falls but those suburbs underneath the showers received some reasonable cumulative rainfall totals approaching 20 mm from 9 am to around 2 pm 18/4/2008.
The showers developed just off the coast, moved onshore in a NW direction in succession eventually affecting Auburn (where I work), Lidcombe including Strathfield and nearby areas bringing contrasting rainfalls ie 12 mm at Sydney Olympic Park, 10 mm at Parramatta but just 3 mm at Rosnay Golf Course in the SW portion of Auburn. The succession of showers passed over Parramatta and then weakened to the NW.
This is evident by the fact that just 1.5 mm of rain fell at Blacktown (NW of Parramatta) between the period 9 am to 7 pm 18/4/2008.
Harley Pearman
-
It certainly came down quite heavy at Rydalmere during this. We managed about 26mm from it all, slightly more than the bureau readings for Homebush etc. It was certainly quite a significant amount of rain at times, leading to quite a few puddles in places along Victoria Road (had to drive to West Ryde in the middle of it).
-
Hello
Rydalmere happened to be in the path of this succession of showers. I am aware that other suburbs near and along this SE to NW line had rainfall totals up around 25 mm or more for the period 9 am to 7 pm. It is truly amazing how a train effect echo of showers (Defined as a long narrow line of showers following one another) can create a large rainfall variation across Sydney. Usually the highest totals occur in a relatively narrow band a few kilometres wide.
Yet places a few kilometres either side of this will receive very light totals tapering to nothing. For a while, the same places will keep receiving shower cell after shower cell until the train effect echo collapses.
I have been reading about these this week in my weather book "Extreme Weather" by H Michael Mogil - 2007 and finally I got to observe one such effect across Sydney 18/4/2008.
Harley Pearman
-
47.6mm here for the 24 hours to 9am 19th April mostly from heavy showers between 7.30pm and 11pm last night.
Several locations along the coast north of Sydney have had 50-60mm in the 24hours. The highest reported is 88mm at Blacksmiths on the Hunter Coast. I see the BoM had a severe weather warning out for the locally heavy rain there as 67mm of that fell between 9pm and midnight.
-
There was at least a small amount of lightning associated with the Hunter falls last night, as I saw a little bit off in the distance looking north about 10pm.
-
Another 33mm here in the 24 hours to 9am 20th April. Quite a few centres on the Mid North Coast and Northern Rivers have had 50-70mm, but nothing outstanding.
I see the Sydney forecast now has rain rather than showers - which matches the heavier coastal cloud developing and spreading southwards.
Some lightning off the Coffs Harbour area in the past hour too.
-
There was a small amount of lightning too. And an impressive total of 74.6mm to 9am this morning, clearly the highest total for SE QLD.
-
Hello
Currently in Sydney, showers continue to prevail. No extended rain periods. Between 1 pm and 2.30 pm 20/4/2008, showers became more scattered over Sydney's western Suburbs for a period and some moderate bursts of rain occurred. The area around Prospect, Blacktown, Kings Langley, Baulkham Hills. Bella Vista and Toongabbie scored the best falls with rainfall totals ranging from 4 to 9 mm. (Rainfall totals are from 9 am to 4 pm from BOM) and much lighter falls elsewhere.
At 12.30 this afternoon, I noted some low topped cold weather cumulonimbus clouds sitting over the lower Blue Mountains west of Sydney but judging by their behaviour, it appears that these were only dropping moderate showers. Katoomba has scored 11 mm of rain, the highest that I can see in the Sydney region so far (9 am to 4 pm for 20/4/2008 from BOM).
The central coast and mid north coast to the north are currently getting the heaviest showers but there is a significant build up of cloud to the north, mainly alto stratus, stratus and strato cumulus cloud but some cirrus clouds is becoming evident too. The satellite photo is showing more dense cloud just to the north of Sydney a likely pre curser to more rain / showers.
Harley Pearman
-
Rainfall totals for the 24 hours to 9am 21 April included a few over the 50mm mark at some Mid North Coast locations including Coffs Harbour and Taree. Noosa Heads in SE QLD topped the list with 72mm though heavy falls in that region were isolated.
Rainfall at my place for this event so far:
16/4 6.8
17/4 4.0
18/4 39.8
19/4 47.4
20/4 33.0
21/4 5.4
Total 136.4mm
April to date: 280.4mm on 12 days
YTD 983.4mm on 75 days.
GFS has unstable conditions over the NSW Northern Coast and SE QLD the next four days (CAPE around 1,000) though this is likely to change quite a bit if a low forms off the coast. We should see scattered thunderstorms over fairly wide areas.
-
Coffs Harbour's 56mm to 9am today was its heaviest April rainfall in nine years while Taree's 2-day total of 118mm is its highest 2-day total for April on record (records only go back 10 years though).
-
Overnight, further rainfall occurred across Sydney resulting in some large variations between suburbs. Some suburbs were drenched while others almost missed out.
Some comparison rainfall totals for the period from 9 am 20/4/2008 till 9 am 21/4/2008 (24 hour totals).
Bexley 56 mm (Highest for Sydney)
Canterbury 47 mm
Cronulla 33 mm
Bankstown 23 mm
Sydney city 22 mm
Parramatta 22 mm
Prospect 18 mm
Seven Hills 14 mm
Avalon 10 mm
The heaviest falls have not wholly been on the coastal suburbs. Instead the heaviest falls have been in a narrow band stretching from Cronulla and in a line NW through Bexley and Canterbury to an area just south east of Parramatta.
To highlight this further, Canterbury has had 90 mm of rain in the past 7 days from 9 am Monday 14/4/2008 until 9 am 21/4/2008 making this suburb the wettest in Sydney for the past 7 days.
Sydney's outer west missed out on most of these falls during this 24 hour period with Penrith receiving 6 mm, Warragamba dam 6 mm and Richmond 4 mm.
There are currently moderate to heavy rain cells on the NSW Central coast and lower to mid north coast which is likely to result in some reasonable rainfall totals over the coming few hours in the affected areas.
Harley Pearman
-
Quite a few updrafts have done up close to the coast today and tonight especially, dumping some large drops and the occasional thunder and lightning, so it looks as if the models are forecasting possible thunderstorms until Thursday at least.
-
Spotted some lightning to my west early evening but the storms did not last long. A few cells reached a strong intensity on radar W and NW of Bris last night but again they did not last long. Could have been some small hail in those.
The Upper Low over NSW continues to produce interesting weather !
-
Moderate to heavy rainfall continues across the Lower North Coast and Central Coast and some reasonable rainfall totals have occurred.
In the 24 hours from 9 am - 21/4/2008 to 9 am - 22/4/2008, Mona Vale on Sydney's northern beaches scored the best rainfall for Sydney being 34 mm of rain. Falls across the rest of Sydney were significantly lighter and concentrated more within the northern areas. Just beyond Sydney's northern fringe, some solid rainfall totals include (All from looking at BOM rain gauges and weather stations):-
Kangy Angy 80 mm (Highest in NSW).
Kincumber 58 mm
Peats Ridge 55 mm
Wyoming 53 mm
Gosford 52 mm.
Brooklyn 39 mm.
These are the highest falls and clearly the Gosford Wyong region scored the heaviest falls for this period.
Throughout the day, the showers have tapered off for Sydney and eased on the Central Coast. Showers and rain has contracted northwards. However, the Lower North Coast between Taree and Newcastle has scored the best falls from 9 am to 7 pm (22/4/2008) such as.
Wootton 38 mm.
Taree 35 mm.
Nabiac 32 mm.
Highest totals.
Other centres in this region have received anywhere between 20 mm and 38 mm for this period.
It is interesting to note that the rain band in this is rather narrow and approximately 100 to 150 km wide but continues to stream onto the coast in a regular fashion. The rain hits the Great Dividing Range only to leave a rain shadow on the western side. Very little if any of this rain is going inland. It is limited to the coastal areas only.
Harley Pearman
-
Gyday all, observed a Thunderstorm 75kms away 45kms SSW of casino according to radar just after sunset.I set up my gear at home to try my luck. These images are resized, uncropped using a 70mm at F2.8 The cell appeared to be riding a convergence line along the Richmond Range.It was of medium size in height, I enjoyed the show!!!
(http://www.australiasevereweather.com/rodney/20080422rwa.jpg)
(http://www.australiasevereweather.com/rodney/20080422rwb.jpg)
(http://www.australiasevereweather.com/rodney/20080422rwc.jpg)
(http://www.australiasevereweather.com/rodney/20080422rwd.jpg)
(http://www.australiasevereweather.com/rodney/20080422rwe.jpg)
-
Reminds me of the 3 years I spent at Coraki between 1979-81 (last 3 years of high school). Used to get some great storms, either close or off in the distance. And at the same time shows I am getting old :-)
-
A couple of pics taken from home of storms that developed off the Tweed Coast after 10pm. The clouds were illuminated quite a bit by the moonlight. Lightning was fairly infrequent with only a few bolts spotted - and not much in-cloud lightning either.
(http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/thumbs/2008042201.jpg) (http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/photos/2008042201.jpg)
(http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/thumbs/2008042202.jpg) (http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/photos/2008042202.jpg)
(http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/thumbs/2008042203.jpg) (http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/photos/2008042203.jpg)
(http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/thumbs/2008042204.jpg) (http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/photos/2008042204.jpg)
-
ABC report:
Wild weather hits Darling Downs
Wednesday April 23, 2008 - 08:38 EST
An aged care centre has been damaged, residents evacuated and power cut to thousands of homes after a wild storm lashed southern Queensland's Darling Downs last night.
Two residents were evacuated from the Blue Care aged care centre at Warwick when a lightning strike blew out windows and brought down a tree on the building.
Earlier, powerlines came down across houses at Mt Thysen west of Toowoomba, and at 10:00pm AEST a woman was injured when her car and a semi-trailer collided at a city intersection where traffic lights were out.
Ergon Energy spokesman Andrew Fox says 8,000 homes lost power.
"It was quite nasty last night from the number of outages that resulted," he said.
Residents are reporting rainfall totals up to 75 millimetres.
-
Interesting cell on Gympie radar at present - this just issued:
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING - SOUTHEAST QUEENSLAND
for DAMAGING WIND and LARGE HAILSTONES
Issued at 2:46 pm Wednesday, 23 April 2008.
Thunderstorms are moving towards the east. They are forecast to affect Gympie and the area north of Gympie by 3:50 pm. Damaging winds and large hailstones are likely.
-
Quite interesting MB.
Currently there's an isolated cell just sitting in the same place for the last hour, it has gone into max intensity but haven't been hit by anything yet.
I think it moved slightly westwards but it's very isolated and I can see the stars just above me, I'll get back to you if something else arises.
Steve
-
Should be some more thunderstorm action over SE QLD/ NSW NSW today though offshore seems more likely.
Some heavier falls have occurred over the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions the past 24 hours - the latest BoM warning:
NSW SEVERE WEATHER WARNING
for Flash Flooding
For people in
Midnorth Coast and Hunter Districts.
Issued at 9:15 am on Thursday 24 April 2008
Synoptic Situation: 6:00 am EST Thursday
A low pressure system is developing off the Mid North Coast of NSW. The low is expected to deepen further during today before beginning to move away to the southeast on Friday. Heavy rainfall is
expected to continue over the Mid North Coast and parts of the Hunter coast until Friday morning.
Currently the heaviest rain is falling from near Smoky Cape down to Seal Rocks, with some heavy showers also in parts of the Hunter. Laurieton has recently recorded over 50mm in an hour. This
rainfall combined with recent falls, is likely to cause flash flooding.
Since 9am Wednesday heaviest rainfall totals include: Laurieton 110mm, Port Macquarie 99mm, Cooranbong 100mm and Onley Forest 89mm [the last two are in the Hunter Valley].
A Flood Warning has been issued for the Williams River.
A Flood Watch is current for the NSW Mid North Coast from the Bellinger River to the Karuah River Valleys.
-
I'm hoping the flooding doesn't get bad as I am supposed to be driving up to Coffs Harbour tomorrow. Fingers crossed it won't cut the highway anywhere...
At this stage Minor to Moderate river flooding is possible along the following
river valleys between Thursday evening (24/4) and Friday evening (25/4):
1. Bellinger Valley
2. Nambucca Valley
3. Macleay Valley
4. Hastings Valley
5. Camden Haven Valley
6. Manning Valley
7. Karuah Basin
-
Quite a few streams are in flood this morning though typically in the minor to moderate range: Hastings, Manning, Paterson and Williams Rivers, for Wyong/Tuggerah Lake and the Myall River at Bulahdelah.
Highest 24 hour rainfalls to 9am 25th April include:
Elands 134
Mt Seaview 137
Comboyne 176
Taree 139
Wootton 150
Upper Landsdowne 218
Further north some weak thunderstorms developed on the northern side of the low furing the afternoon and evening of the 24th. With 500hPa temps around -20 there was bound to be some more action. The most significant cell rapidly formed out to sea off Jacobs Well (SE Brisbane area). I took these shots at home 120km to the south between 8.35pm and 8.40pm with the zoom lens at 200mm. F5.6 400 ISO.
(http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/thumbs/2008042401.jpg)
(http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/thumbs/2008042402.jpg)
(http://australiasevereweather.com/temp/forum/thumbs/2008042403.jpg)
(wasn't able to post last night due to the website being down)
MB
-
Over the past 24 hours from 9 am 24/4/2008 to 9 am 25/4/2008, some significant rainfall totals have occurred on the Lower / Mid north coast. These figures are taken from BOM rainfall gauges and some falls are very significant:-
Comboyne 156 mm, Wootton 144 mm, Taree Airport 138 mm, Rocks Crossing 123 mm, Kerewong 120 mm, Mt Seaview 119 mm, Elards 117 mm, Redoak 115 mm, Killabakh 109 mm, Cabbage Tree 106 mm, Bulahdelah 105 mm.
This represents all communities that have received more than 100 mm of rain over the past 24 hours. This narrow stretch of the NSW coast has been drenched with rain and showers all week.
Further south around Newcastle, Nobbys Head had 67 mm, Hexham 65 mm and Maitland 56 mm in the same period (Highest totals only).
On the Central Coast, rainfalls were lighter ranging from 11 to 56 mm with Cooranbong receiving the highest figure of 56 mm.
In Sydney which has been on the southern edges of this system, received further light to moderate showers with Belrose scoring 24 mm, Avalon scoring 22 mm (Highest totals across Sydney), City scoring 5.6 mm and for comparison where I live, an extra 5 mm. Other suburbs scored 10 to 20 mm reasonably spread across the city but with lighter falls occurring in the far western areas.
Amazingly, this SE airstream and associated east coast low to the north east of Sydney has delivered 10 days in a row where showers have fallen sometime during the day at Blacktown. Further, Sydney City has scored some 13 such days in a row where showers or rain periods have fallen.
Looks like the east coast low will start to move away from the coast Saturday and weaken. A cold front is approaching Victoria and drier westerly air looks set to move through the rain soaked region thus clearing this current episode of showers and rain.
Harley Pearman
-
On the drive north there were a lot of areas in flood with lots of water in paddocks etc, and a bit north of Taree there were floodwaters (only about 1 inch) over the Pacific Highway. The drive had a few times where the brief showers were heavy enough I had to back off to 60 due to zero visibility, all the way from Bulahdelah to Macksville.
The highway also has a lot of damage with large potholes caused by the rain and traffic for about a 200km stretch. Saw a 4WD with a caravan jackknife coming the other way, about 500m in front. Suddenly saw a caravan flying through the air. Somehow the whole mix stayed upright but was off to the left hand side of their lane facing the wrong way in the mud.
-
On the drive north there were a lot of areas in flood with lots of water in paddocks etc, and a bit north of Taree there were floodwaters (only about 1 inch) over the Pacific Highway. The drive had a few times where the brief showers were heavy enough I had to back off to 60 due to zero visibility, all the way from Bulahdelah to Macksville.
The highway also has a lot of damage with large potholes caused by the rain and traffic for about a 200km stretch. Saw a 4WD with a caravan jack-knife coming the other way, about 500m in front. Suddenly saw a caravan flying through the air. Somehow the whole mix stayed upright but was off to the left hand side of their lane facing the wrong way in the mud.
I was driving South from South west rocks - Near Port Macquarie back to Sydney and we went past that caravan and 4X4 just as emergency crews were arriving.
Also went through the inch of flood water over the highway.
Some pictures I got on the drive to Sydney:
http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l313/troyrulz007/?action=view¤t=DSCF0456.jpg
http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l313/troyrulz007/?action=view¤t=DSCF0458.jpg
http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l313/troyrulz007/?action=view¤t=DSCF0460.jpg
http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l313/troyrulz007/?action=view¤t=DSCF0461.jpg
http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l313/troyrulz007/?action=view¤t=DSCF0462.jpg
http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l313/troyrulz007/?action=view¤t=DSCF0465.jpg
Anyway, all the rain didn't stop us from Having a good Holiday, We made the most of it.
http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l313/troyrulz007/?action=view¤t=DSCF0454.jpg
http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l313/troyrulz007/?action=view¤t=DSCF0452.jpg
MB Edit: please use thumbnails for large photos
-
Hi guys,
(I finally have a chance to get a couple shots from the 22nd of April up as I've been in Sydney since the 23rd.)
We had a small, partially active, almost multicell line approach us from the South around 5pm. The system only came within 70k's of us and seemed to be around Walgett somewhere at the time I took the shots below so I can't give you much in the way of any great detail on the rainfall. I did notice a very limited few CG present but as the temperatures fell the convection soon gave out and it all went pear-shaped after that? I was hoping to get a few lightning shots from town as it was heading towards us, but it wasn't to be this time. There were 4 or 5 great looking updrafts in the main structure and a smaller but convectively stronger cell anviling nicely to the left of the main structure taking on a "fungus" appearance in shape. Great to see anything out here this time of year, let alone nice sunset lit structure! :)
(http://www.ridgelightning.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2031&g2_serialNumber=2)
5:38pm and the view looking South towards Walgett. This is a small panorama of two shots. I cropped a small amount of sky. I don't recall ever seeing anything like the way these updraft towers were positioned on the front edge of a storm before, particularly given they were under one anvil? It's definitely a new one on me!
(http://www.ridgelightning.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2044&g2_serialNumber=2)
This was the smaller cell to the left of the main structures. No colour adjustment here, it's just as it was! There were a few CG from this cell but it soon dissipated not long after I took this shot.
Cheers guys,
Shauno
-
Nice photos there shaun. Nice colouring too pitty is soon dissipated not long after you took them as there would have been a nice light show there
-
Nice photos there shaun. Nice colouring too pitty is soon dissipated not long after you took them as there would have been a nice light show there
Hi lollie3,
Thanks for the kind words! I was totally fine with the fact that the storms didn't reach town. I had to be off early to Sydney the next morning (a 10hr drive from here) so I may have not been able to get out to photograph any lightning once the storms had arrived close enough to the Ridge? Having our worst storm season in years here (ONLY 2 DECENT ONES!!!) I was just happy to see something, at least! :)
My poor camera batteries are paying the price for just sitting around and getting minimal use? I think my spare one has died completely so I will need to replace it before next season rolls around. I've never gone out without a spare, it's just too risky lol.
Take care,
Shauno
-
My poor camera batteries are paying the price for just sitting around and getting minimal use? I think my spare one has died completely so I will need to replace it before next season rolls around. I've never gone out without a spare, it's just too risky lol.
That's why I make sure any gadgets I buy use either AA or AAA batteries. GPS, camera, torches. Doesn't matter. I have a whole lot of rechargeables, and a charger at home and a fast charger in the car. Better than something that requires some weird battery you can't charge on the road. Especially as I occasionally do week long camping trips and take a couple of hundred photos.