Seconds after I had uploaded photos to my third post on this thread, there were three cloud to ground lightning strikes close to where I live with the third one knocking out the power for several seconds and ensuring a close range thunderclap.
The evening storms came through that saw three cells pass over, each one bringing bursts of heavy rainfall, wind and much lightning, much of it intra cloud. I did see a low shelf cloud pass over as the second storm started to pass over.
Final rainfall totals from this event are quite amazing as the storms were hit and miss. According to the BOM Weather stations, up until 9 am 9/11/2010 for Sydney, 65 mm fell at Holsworthy followed by 60 mm at Liverpool. Falls of 17 to 68 mm fell across south west Sydney (Worst affected) with 30 to 35 mm around Auburn and Lidcombe, 36 mm at Fairfield, 18 mm at Blacktown but only 9 mm at Seven Hills. Sydney's north shore saw much less action (3 to 9 mm), Sydney City 6.4 mm but 12 to 18 mm around Dee Why. Unfortunately the amount of rain that fell at St Marys where I was earlier is not known because there is no weather station in that locality which caught that storm cell.
Please find below two more photos of the evening cell (Base structure) that later became part of the cell that moved over Parramatta. Prior to taking these, a considerable amount of thunder was audible from the anvil cloud that spread north and east. I am looking south and west but the base is close to where I was located. Following this, the main evening storms started to come through.
Harley Pearman
