Topic: NSW / QLD Severe Storms and Lightning: 2 - 8 Dec 2008

[Michael Bath]

The same cell which was approaching Kingaroy on the earlier post is still going 2.5 hours later. Quite a compact and long-lived supercell.

[JulianR]

Gday All,

After umming and ahhing about which area to target today I decided to stick N of Brisbane, which GFS had taken a liking to. After spending a couple of hours watching some convection pulse through Yarraman, just after 3pm a cell which had been steady orange on radar exploded into a nice deep brown/black core, just to the W of Caboolture. Just sitting on the outskirts of the town, I could see Cg's in the distance with some really earth thundering solid thunder, which was encouraging at this stage as for most of the day the cells just looked very weak and pulsey.

About 7mins later, after the cell deepened in intensity, I could see a feature in the distance so drove further W of the town and caught a glimpse of a guster. Quick glance of the radar loop showed that the cell had lost its intensity slightly, and this was reflected in the guster looking a bit decayed as I drove a few mins further W down the road.

At this stage the propagation of this cell was favouring an E/SE trajectory, so the next nearest best clear unobstructed position was Bribie Island. By the time I had turned the car around and I was about to drive over the Bruce Highway overpass to Bribie Island Rd, I caught a glimpse of the guster from about 9mins ago which I thought was dying, but had exploded in its size and was literally chasing me E'wards.

At this point there were flashbangs directly overhead as the precip was starting to intensify and looking in the mirror it had shifted its path, sliding slightly south. The next best option was to find an open area as quickly as possible, and that was found by making a hasty right turn down a road which I had no idea where it lead to. All I have left to say is thank god I had GPS in the car or else id have been running around in circles, scrambling to find a way to a clearing.

Upon reaching the beach there were people out wading in the water, people walking the streets and kids playing on the road, all the while where were gunshot cg's flying out from the leading edge of the guster. I have never witnessed such sheer stupidity or ignorance from people with a severe storm like that bearing down upon them, literally seconds away from opening up. Once the guster was directly overhead, heavy heavy precip and wind gusts up to 100km/hr+ were experienced, followed by marble sized hail. A frightfully exhilarating experience I must say, but I did not feel safe at all outside of the vehicle taking shots prior to the guster moving over, due to the lightning flying everywhere. Anyway enjoy the pics!

View looking NW from Bestman Rd, Godwin Beach


View from Godwin Beach, looking W/NW














This marks the end of my 5th day of chasing in SE QLD .... what a week and we still have the rest of this month and january to go yet! 

Cheers,

Julian

[Jimmy Deguara]

Very nice shelf cloud structure with those Queensland storms - incredible!

Just for reporting's sake, the storm that began in southwestern Sydney and then proceeded to the Central Coast split and passed near Schofields approximately 1:30 to 2pm. We received some steady to heavy rain with large droplets at times but never intense rain - being just outside of the core. Here are some pictures of the developing and organising structure (I had to attend a family BBQ so could not chase - worst luck)...





All photos for 7 December 2008

[Richary]

I assume the Sydney one achieved warning status at some stage, though missed it as I saw the cancellation one. Maybe got 0.5mm here though the radar would have indicated more than that. Would have interesting to follow it to Glenorie and see what happened up there.

Julian, sounds like you had a nice chase up there even if the lightning got a bit close. But I agree, continuing to play on the beach as the lightning comes over is a worry. Have done a bolt years ago from a golf course when things started getting a but close (like the adjacent fairway). Seeing as we were on the 9th we declared that a par and bolted for the clubhouse!

Awesome cloud formations you had there with that one. Hope I catch some on my north coast trip next week.

[Michael Bath]

Thanks for posting those shots Julian - nice   Rather ordinary just south of the border yesterday.   

Richary - there was only a warning for the hailstorm which tracked through the Central Coast.

Michael

[Ursula]

There is a storm cell tracking along the Putty rd, it should go towards Kellyville B' Hills, I used to live in Kurrajong and know how the weather tracks in these parts of the country, it is the 8.12. 08

[David C]

A squall line tracked across the Sydney metro area between 3-4pm today (Monday).

Had to go to Rhodes to pick up some things which just happened to be at the right time. Despite more tropical style mid-level flow and Tasmanian sfc temperatures, there was a stiff moisture laden ENE wind to help the upper trough out, with gusts over 40km/h, effectively force-feeding this complex, which was not too shabby. Well, we'll take what we can get in Sydney this year!. The hybrid shelf / roll  cloud had some really dynamic motions, obviously in an environment where there was strong low-level vorticity. A pity I did not have my videocam on hand as it would make for some good timelapse, not to mentoin some strong CGs dropping out in front.

Phone pics from Rhodes Waterside precinct. In the first can see steam from the chimney stack being blown west and also note the stingers at cloud base which are indicative of strong moist storm inflow.

[Dave Nelson]

Not a bad wee storm  huh Dave  

  I found a place in Carlingford to take a few pix as it headed towards me  some good CG's and a good
number of buried CC's.
   I then continued up the road towards Dural and got hit with the gust front on Castle Hill Rd a bit prior to
the Old Nthrn Rd jnct. No hail where I was, but VERY heavy rain made for extreme driving conditions.
By the time I got to the Glenhaven area (prior to Dural) I had passed through the rain and storm.

cheers
Dave N

[Mike]

Impressed by all the photos and comments!  What about those lightning images MB - did you notice how the surrounding ground lit up where the strike hits!  Awesome structure and is that roll cloud included in those storms Rodney?

Sounds like that area needed a bit of a bombardment and it delivered.  Great stuff everyone who posted

[Harley Pearman]

I could not take any photos as I was at work but the storm passed over Auburn between 3.30 and 4 pm and produced two distinct but heavy shower bursts but not allot of lightning. Observed shelf cloud and only light wind. The main feature was the rainfall from it.

Apparently I saw on some news items that hail was observed at Raymond Terrace (Not sure on the size) and Tocal (Hunter Valley) collected 28 mm in 10 minutes. Cessnock collected 36 mm.

In Sydney the heaviest falls were in suburbs anywhere between Blacktown to Fairfield to Bankstown, Strathfield and Parramatta regions such as:-

25 to 30 mm around Bankstown, 20 mm at Toongabbie, 12 to 15 mm around Auburn and 12 mm where I live. The storm weakened somewhat closer to the coast with only 1.6 mm falling at Observatory Hill, 2 mm at La Peruse and 4.4 mm at Bondi.

Harley Pearman

[JulianR]

Hi All,

As promised further images from 03/12, 04/12 & 06/12 - Enjoy

Explosive development to the W of Fernvale, 03/12/08 (The lapse rates on this CB are the quickest I have seen with the human eye)






No. 2 Supercell takes charge, with lots of greenage and plenty of cg's


100m N of Wivenhoe Dam Wall - 1st Supercell puts on a lightning supershow to our SE












04/12/08 - Esk Guster - Picture taken approx 2km N of Wivenhoe Dam Wall






06/12/08 - Kangaroo Point Cliffs












Thats about all I have to offer at the moment ... hopefully secret santa will have some HP supercells in his sack for us on saturday

Cheers,

Julian

[Richary]

Some really nice pics there Julian.

As for today's Sydney squall line, had rumbling overhead at Chatswood about 3:30, then had to drive up to Hornsby. Quite heavy rain around Lindfield - almost thought it was about to hail but didn't). Then all clear after that. Looked fairly impressive on the radar and listening to the traffic reports had caused some local flooding at Silverwater, Parramatta and down near Milperra. Got 17mm here at Rydalmere.

Wednesday still forecast for storms even possibly morning ones, so might get a chance for a few shots as I head north towards Narrabri.

[enak_12]

I'm adding this really late but this was taken on the 3rd of December, one of the small cells that developed near Coffs wasn't much else to photograph though..

[James]

It's day's like today why I love chasing in Australia, chasing storms with no one else around in the middle of nowhere! Sure they're not a patch on our US cousins variety however they still pack some punch to get the adrenalin pumping.

GFS had been a little over the top at the start of the season however seemed to be back to normal the last few weeks. Today was a classic example of why I never look at an LI chart only. -2 to -3 LI's had been predicted over the Darling Downs this afternoon however after checking what Temp/DP combo GFS was using (25/17) it quickly became apparent that it was incorrect. MLAPS had temps hitting 29-30c around Goondiwindi with a DP between 16 - 18c. A quick adjustment of the GFS sounding gave a much better indicator of the potential on the Downs. LI's of between -5 to -6 and CAPE heading towards 2000, much better! A tongue of colder air at 500mb was progged to move across the region mid to late afternoon. Another plus.

I always love a good rain band in the morning over a target area as long as it clear by lunch. Today was timed to perfection with the main moisture plume and cloud clearing the region by lunch. WV imagery showed the dry air above had well and truly pushed across giving the updrafts that appeared around 1pm a lovely rock hard sharpness to them.

The temp had hit 29 and the DP on my kestrel was showing 18. I watched an isolated multicell develop to the east of Moree and noticed a small line developing to the west of Moree. The line didnt look great at first (lower DP of 14 would not have helped where it had developed) so I watched the Multicell for an hour or two.

   

Finally it started to weaken and my attention now turned to the line behind.

   

It was finally encroaching onto Goondiwindi with ample moisture now available. The bases lowered and the first shelf cloud of the day developed.

   

   

For the next few hours I kept ahead of the north-eastwards moving line as it crossed Goondi and onto Millmerran before finally calling off the chase at 6pm.

   

   

   

Lots of flash flooding and strong wind gusts however did not see any hail.

As a side note if the Downs was to get another rain event very shortly, there is the potential for some serious flooding to occur. All the creeks and causeways over the back roads were over flowing with water. Fields looked like lakes in places.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

Awesome shelf cloud structure Julian! Do you know for certain they are supercells? The tops look a little fuzzy and the updrafts separated? Was it confirmed by the Bureau? Of course, I have not seen radar. Obviously they did reach fair heights but the successive structure of the updrafts are more reminiscent of multicells. If you cannot quantify your claims, I will edit your post and change it to multicell.

Some storms in Sydney yesterday. Despite not checking the models, I took one look at the sky during the morning and warned Imelda about what was to come during the afternoon ie when I was not around. The storms occurred between 2 and 3pm! Some heavy falls around which was good enough to keep the grass green.

We have had 18.6mm from the previous storm and rain event and then 12mm from yesterday's event in Schofields.

Here a couple of pictures whilst on the way for a checkup for Imelda:) I guess more for reporting the event than anything else. Good to see moisture finally arrive in Sydney. We may be in for some storms as of now on.