Topic: NSW / VIC / QLD Storms 20-26 January 2009 and whinge thread

[Chris.]

Location: Warwick Queensland 24th January 2009.


Hi Everyone, chased a few storms on the 24th starting with this one that formed around 3pm over Killarney and very slowly moved North. It was followed up by another storm that was on the radar and within sight about 6.30pm and it rolled over town just on dark. The lightning in it was spectacular but I was safely home. Would love to have kept chasing it but my wife decided I had enough for the day, and I had, plus it rolled straight over us so catching the last minute was great with low ISO and shutter release cable.

When it's humid here in the morning, they start building early and you know you are going to get a good show. I have been chasing them round here for about 8 years and wish I had found this forum earlier for lots of reasons, one to share but another to learn the terms used to describe them so any help there would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime I will just call them all storms if that's ok.

So back to earlier in the day, this one in the set of photos didn't move that much, just kept building and when I thought it was over it seemed to form again. I guess it was pulling all the moisture around it, into it. The multiple formations formed a near perfect rim around us and by mid afternoon there seemed to be storms in all directions.

The last photo here was taken at 4.44pm and I am sure I recognize the same formation in this thread after reading other entries.

Thanks very much, I need to continue to resize images to put another set together to show the storm at 6.30pm.

Kind regards,
Chris.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

[Michael Bath]

Some great storm structures there Chris - thanks for posting. I do recognise some of the cells from the chase with Rodney and Jason on the 24th Jan.  Look forward to your other pics. Feel free to post other events in some of the older threads if you wish.

regards, Michael

[Chris.]

Location: Warwick Queensland 24th January 2009.

Thanks Very much, Jimmy for the help and Michael for the comments and encouragement. I would be happy to post a few images of storms from this area in older threads. I hope this amount of images is allowed, if not, I will remove some, but hard for me to explain the changing face of this storm other than pictures.  We often see many like it and any terminology or descriptions you could share I would really appreciate as it will make it easier for me to describe them in older threads that I can post into of other storms.
 
 
I have pretty well negotiated the forum and the images are amazing and to you guys chasing around Warwick, I recognize all the locations. Reading about them is a bonus for me and I am starting to understand , for example, CG'S. Was not sure what they were yesterday, but worked it out.


This storm was on the radar by 6.30 when I looked and crossed my fingers we would see it before dark. I have close ups as well but thought I have posted enough for this one.

Kind regards,
Chris.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

[dann weatherhead]

Some great pics in this thread -love the colour in rhett's and the hazy pileus capped structure in Chris's pics are awesome. You can see the remains from the updrafts lingering in the upper atmosphere post pulse. Awesome

[Chris.]

Thanks Dann, I think I can see what you are referring to with the remains of updraughts and referring to the first storm and set of photos right? I am going to search post pulse now, that sounds interesting. The second set of photos, is that classed as a supercell? The first two photos show the main structure and it firing south west. Seemed to go forever with more storms in it, but is it considered one storm? Again, I must apologise, still not sure of the terms used to describe them.

Regards,
Chris.

[Michael Bath]

Hi Chris,

The cells that day were mostly multicells - propagating north or NNW. There was a lot of instability with CAPE around 3,500 (which is very high!) but windshear (changing wind speed and/or direction with height) was very light apart from at the anvil levels where there was a 50kt westerly later in the day. This allowed for very strong updraft pulses but the lack of decent windshear results in that collapsing on itself and a new cell going up on the N or NW flank, rather than a sustained updraft/downdraft separation in supercells. Supercells also require the winds to change direction (typically from N-NE at the surface, then N, NW, to W) with height.

The very high CAPE on the day which produced very strong updrafts does allow storms to become sustained for a while - as was observed on the day - but not supercellular.

You can still say it was the same storm - the outflow from one collapsing updraft kicks up the next updraft and so on. It also results in the shelf cloud structures seen in your photos.

Some radar loops so you can have a look at the various cells during the afternoon and evening. 

---> Brisbane 128km scale radar loop

---> Brisbane 256km scale radar loop

Note how the evening cell was moving faster than the earlier ones. Windshear has picked up a little by evening.

Compare the Brisbane soundings between 10am and 10pm on the day. For help on reading these have a look at this thread. You can see the wind speed and direction with height on the right hand side of the diagrams. Ground is at the bottom and work your way up. Note how the winds have mainly changed from W / SW to SSE and increased in speed.

Brisbane 00z

Brisbane 12z


Regards, Michael

[Chris.]

Thanks Michael, really appreciate the links to the radar showing the movement of the storm, have never seen that many frames in a loop before. Will also follow the links to the soundings to understand them.

Once again, thanks very much for the info and explanation,

Best regards,
Chris.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Sorry this may be late but good to include regardless.

Whilst we were chasing down in Canberra on January 21 this year, storms had also occurred in Sydney. My sister Linda has taken the time to take photographs which turned out quite nice.