Topic: March 28th/29th Watch for Severe Storms from Upper Trough

[Jeff Brislane]

Hi All,

I've been watching tuesday with interest as a nice upper trough is forcast to move through central N.S.W. on tuesday and then move up the coast and affect the Min-North coast and Northern rivers on Wednesday. At the surface the models are suggesting that a low pressure will not form from the surface trough and north easterly winds at the surface from the tasman high look like remaining for both days. Current L/I and cape forcasts are 1400 and -6 respectively. Mmmm, very nice indeed for late march and hopefully we will see some powerfull storms and even supercells with such a favourable enviroment.

I have tuesday afternoon off! Awesome, as well as wednesday if I need to so i'll be chasing anything I can. Current outlook has the area from Sydney north to the Hunter along the coast for tuesday as the target area and anywhere from Taree north on wednesday.

Later in the week GFS has forcast a very intenses cold outbreak so this might well be a last hurrah.


Jeff.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi Jeff,

Glad you checked the models and kept us up to date. Will GFS spit the dummy once more as it has been pathetic predicting a few days out this season!

Obviously I will make the decision at that time prior to chasing. Hopefully any events are within the Sydney region.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jeff Brislane]

It is late march and GFS, after going for good instability for 3 days is now starting to downplay the situation a fair bit. If instability drops too around -2 and cape drops below 1000 than I guess we might be looking at just a rain event as the upper trough moves across central inland N.S.W. I can't get onto plot it properely though so i'll have to wait and see.

The chances of a cold blast are increasing though as a powerfull upper trough following this one should produce a bomb type low pressure system over the tasman sea later this week strengthening southerly winds along the coast.

[Jeff Brislane]

Well, something had to go wrong and that something is the fact that's it's all going to happen a long way inland. I'll probably not chase this afternoon as i'm not in the mood for a drive to at least Dubbo for some later action this afternoon. Some of the figures are still fairly impressive though and if I didn't have to attend a work thing today I would've made a day or two of it and headed out there. Instability's not huge but there's a nice turning wind profile with good strength throughout the atmosphere and the 700/500 temp range out past Cobar get up as high 18 degrees with -16 above +2.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi Jeff,

I am not too impressed with the matching of the system myself. Temperatures are pretty cool for this time of the year. There will be storms but it seems to be building more into a rain event - should be good rains over the next few days in New South Wales. Instability is certainly well west of Dubbo. Besides a few storms in February and late January, the second season thus far has been pathetic.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jeff Brislane]

Pathetic is about all I can think of as well. You are right about rain chances, but still it's pretty warm out around Cobar. Thursday is looking a bit better now closer to home.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Yes there are chances as the low passes over since it will not be progressing rapidly that we still may experience some interesting weather.

I am quite interested in what is happening at the moment - easterly airstream with slight instability to the west.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jeff Brislane]

Thursday and Friday still hold potential for some interesting weather now for our area. On Friday there is a much stronger upper system passing through and hopefully we'll see some action in Sydney.

[Matthew Piper]

There was certainly some interesting storm action around southwestern Sydney this afternoon I was at Raby attending a school inservice when around 3pm I could hear distant thunder. A short time later lightning was striking closeby leading to a series of quite loud bangs. The wind then started with a vengeance and got so strong it began to look like a cyclone outside. After a few more minutes the rain started and at first it was torrential and being blown horizontally by the wind. The wind then died down leaving just torrential rain which lasted for around 10 minutes or more. Upon leaving the inservice around 3:30pm I encountered numerous tree branches which had been blown down. I also observed a large gum tree which had fallen down across a yard and uprooted itself.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Wow Matt!

We had a couple of drops and that is it so far this evening.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara