Topic: VIC, TAS, NSW & QLD Storms : 13 - 17 March 2009

[coastalstorm]

Had a ripper of a storm today. Gotta be one of the best I've ever experienced. These photos are taken near Lismore.













Raced it into Lismore.



Then drove east of Lismore and it exploded. Whiteout conditions, flash flooding, super close cg lightning, branches on road. Most people were pulled over on the side of the road but I didn't want to pull over in case a branch landed on my car.

I could barely see 2m in front of me. Then drove to Ballina an it started hailing. This is the dusty sunset from Ballina this arvo.

[Antonio (stormboy)]

my friend was visiting his mum north of coolangatta today and captured this nice blot he said use it on that forum thingi you go on.

copyright friend.....

[Chris.]

Warwick Qld 15th March. 9.30pm.

Yes, great storms from everyone. Sorry I am late with a report, too many photos so will start with yesterday and this storm that was sitting about 30 km south east of Warwick and these photos taken from near Cheerebah. The storm sat there all night and the activity in it was intense. I was surprised to see it still there this morning. The activity today was nothing short of spectacular and followed by a very cold front around 3.30 and what appeared to be 3 cells coming together and heading over Cunningham's Gap to the coast.

I will put up another report when I download today's photos.

Regards,
Chris.

[Chris.]

Warwick QLD. 16th March.

Hi again, as promised here are photos of three storms that were to the North, South and East here in Warwick. I could not get over the size of these things and the dark storm from the south dropped hail in Stanthorpe and you could see the green hue in it as it came over us but no hail here. With it came a freezing cold wind. There was a lot of rotation in it and cg's. I can't be sure, but, in my opinion they joined and went over Cunningham's Gap as one cell. That's what it looked like.

The storm to the east had moved over town one hour earlier and the rain was like a monsoon event, just torrential. It was pretty amazing to watch and again I just could not get over the size of it.

Regards,
Chris.

Ps..I still have not sorted out why exif data on images is incorrect with dates and time. These were all taken in the afternoon between 3-4pm.

[Michael Bath]

I've put up galleries of pictures for the two chase days in the Northern Rivers:

---> 15 March 2009

---> 16 March 2009

The 16th was a bit disappointing with storms developing around dawn on the Northern Tablelands and then just persisting and spreading through the Northern Rivers too early. There were some impressive and powerful updrafts during the afternoon period but the shear profile was unable to sustain anything. Consequently strong and quite cool outflow killed any chances of some nice structure. There was one cell of interest developing on the northern edge of the line (around Drake/Tabulam) that exhibited a wallcloud for quite some time but it was also undercut by outflow.



Even the cell that managed to drop golf ball sized hail on Alstonville and nearby areas was fairly featureless and lacking lightning. These two hail pics by Chrissy:

[David C]

I was contacted by David C 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:

It was very active locally at home, Jimmy - a lot of close bolts. In the middle of preparing dinner I took some rubbish out to the bin and with the ominous skies to the west and north-west, hopped in the car and headed on up to Bankstown airport for a look. Once there, shot a few minutes of video before being summoned back to continue on with the dumplings Not a bad storms for us...........well, by this year's standards.

Seems this new multi- large- video plugin for uploading has got the aspect ratio wrong so the video is squeezed to 4:3. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGVZQ3B25jk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGVZQ3B25jk</a>

[Jimmy Deguara]

Michael,

There was one cell of interest developing on the northern edge of the line (around Drake/Tabulam) that exhibited a wallcloud for quite some time but it was also undercut by outflow.

How can this be - wall cloud undercut by outflow would of course be interesting. I would probably say that there was mid level inflow being undercut by outflow - which often ends up being the case in Australia. Do you have timelapse of this event Michael? Which direction did it rotate?

I am wandering if there is a similarity in dynamics to this event:

Timelapse of rapidly changing dynamics around a wall cloud region under the main mesocyclone

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Bath]

Hi Jimmy - my initial description may not have been the best. Have a look at the radar and you can see the more isolated cell that developed west of Drake and north of the other activity. It was a very low contrast situation so no video but I could still see a wallcloud between 1.30 and 2.40pm (last photo I posted above). Southerly outflow blasted through from the other cells soon after that - particularly from the cells between south of Casino and Mallanganee (refer radar).

---> Grafton radar loop 16th March

MB

[Chris.]

Warwick. Qld. 20th March.

We are still getting thundrstorms each afternoon up till yesterday. This one taken on the 20th March is minutes before the sun disappeared and only ten minutes before this photo the convection tower was three times the size it is in this photo.



Regards,
Chris.