Topic: Northern Melbourne Storms - Wed 21st Feb 2007

[Brad Hannon]

Hi all, I briefly chased a cell from the northern suburbs of Melbourne to the NE between 4.30pm and 6pm.  Its not ideal chase terrain - suburban and then hilly towards the Yarra Valley Ranges.  As I was leaving my area near Eltham I noticed a defined lowering/feature with strong corkscrew characteristics leading up into the cloud.  It appeared to me to be higher in altitude than the bulk of the clouds surrounding it but despite this it was most certainly the central point of activity and updraft for this cell.  It persisted for up to 10mins at which point it became obscured by cloud.  I wondered whether it was a wall cloud of some type.  I have a few photos of this feature as I was driving towards it and I will post them tonight.

What I find interesting is that there is a chase report on WZ from Adiabatic (briefing room, pg2 of the Vic 19th-22nd thread) who describes what I believe is the same feature and has a photo (from memory my pics show a more powerful feature).  His description is "there appeared to be some form of wall cloud - unsure what to make of this - but it was pretty much a RFB. Interesting"

Unfortunately the storm weakened very quickly as it moved out to the NE.

I've been trying to get a Melb/Vic radar loop from strikeone for this event but keep getting error messages.  Anyone able to help there?

[Michael Bath]

I emailed Mike Fewings about this last week. I don't think his site has been archiving Melbourne images since the old radar was taken offline and replaced by Melb AP. Hopefully he will fix the problem soon. Don't hesitate to email him if you spot errors - he very much welcomes the feedback.

regards, Michael

[Brad Hannon]

Thanks Michael, I will.  Here are a few pics of the feature as described earlier (and mentioned in Adiabatic's thread on WZ).  Visually, it persisted for 10mins before being shrouded in cloud.  It was very difficult to photograph in busy traffic as I was driving but the left hand side appears to indicate some corkscrewing and at times could be seen to go up a lot further than my pics show.  Hopefully someone can add some experienced opinion.  Anybody?