Topic: VIC / NSW Severe Storms 12 - 15 November 2010

[Hardy25]

a cell just formed over my house, you can see it on melbourne radar 6:00pm

it is haling with about 1/2cm hail

was watching it form for about 10 minutes, wish my camera was working to show you guys


*EDIT* at 6:55 it got really scary an intense cell move over and the wind speeds are really strong we are battening down the hatches

*Edit2* cleaning up post



For people in the South East, Western Port and parts of the Inner, Eastern, Mornington Peninsula, Outer East and Port Phillip Local Warning Areas.

Issued at 5:56 pm Friday, 12 November 2010.

The Bureau of Meteorology warns that, at 5:55 pm, severe thunderstorms were detected on weather radar near Brighton, Camberwell, Caulfield, Clayton, Mt Waverley and Toorak. These thunderstorms are moving towards the southeast. They are forecast to affect Cranbourne, Dandenong, Frankston, waters off Mordialloc beach, the area east of Mornington and the area south of Cranbourne by 6:25 pm and French Island, Hastings, Phillip Island, Rhyll, Tooradin and the area north of Bass by 6:55 pm.

Damaging winds, very heavy rainfall, flash flooding and large hailstones are likely.

The State Emergency Service advises that people should:
* Keep clear of fallen power lines.
* secure any loose objects in the vicinity of your home.
* keep away from creeks and drains.
* do not drive vehicles through flooded areas.
* stay indoors if possible.
* Avoid using the phone during the storm.
* if you are outside, avoid sheltering under trees
* listen to the radio for storm updates
* switch off your computer and electrical appliances

The next warning is due to be issued by 6:55 pm.

A more general severe thunderstorm warning is also current for the Central, North Central, West and South Gippsland and parts of the East Gippsland, Northern Country and North East districts.

Warnings are also available through TV and Radio broadcasts, the Bureau's website at www.bom.gov.au or call 1300 659 217. The Bureau and State Emergency Service would appreciate warnings being broadcast regularly.

[Colin Maitland]

a cell just formed over my house, you can see it on melbourne radar 6:00pm

it is haling with about 1/2cm hail

was watching it form for about 10 minutes, wish my camera was working to show you guys


*EDIT* ay 6:55 it got really scary an intense cell it, and the windspeeds are really strong we are battening down the hatches
For people in the South East, Western Port and parts of the Inner, Eastern, Mornington Peninsula, Outer East and Port Phillip Local Warning Areas.

ABC and WZ news have reported this morning;

Severe thunderstorms have hit Melbourne's south-east with reports of hail, strong wind gusts and heavy rain.

Moorabbin airport recorded 15 millimetres of rain in just 10 minutes.

The State Emergency Service (SES) has fielded more than 200 calls, and expects that total to reach 300 as residents return home to find their properties have been damaged by hail, strong wind gust and heavy rains.

The worst hit suburbs were Chelsea, Frankston, Oakleigh and Moorabbin.

Several residents have reported serious damage to homes after trees fell on houses at Frankston and Chelsea. 

[Hardy25]

colin: yeah i live in one of the areas effected and it was intense we had horizontal rain whiting out for some minutes and very intense winds, this came after the cell i reported on that literally formed over my house

i was thinking it was maybe a microburst as the area i live in has had alot of these with similar damage

sustained winds were about 4 minutes, and on Doppler radar you could see the very strong wind move through, i will see if there is archive of that Doppler radar images

was pretty intense, the wind came from nowhere, one minute it is overcast and raining the next everything was going berserk

this year in January i drove through a micrburst in my old suburb just few kilometers from where i am now [ right time wrong place? ]

[Michael Bath]

Permanent radar archives including Doppler are available from here:

http://www.theweatherchaser.com/radar-loop/

or download ZIPs of images from here:

http://radar.strikeone.net.au/?fuseaction=loops.select&displayitem=1

[Hardy25]

Thanks MB ill scan through them today and find what we experienced and what i viewed on Doppler

[Kristy Norman]

Got to love it when a beast come to you!!!

That was a bit crazy!!

[Richary]

Obviously so far this event has mainly been to the west of Sydney, but I will add today's Sydney experiences for the record. I was working on a roof or cherry picker all day (35 degrees and 60% humidity is not preferred for that caper). So apart from having a good view I was paying attention to the weather as those aren't places you want to be if a thunderstorm does develop.

There had been some cumulus buildup from mid morning over the direction of the Blue Mountains. These gradually developed mid afternoon into some low topped cells which seemed to have some pretty heavy rainfall associated with them even though they weren't that large. No lightning seen however and luckily or unluckily they missed where I was working at Greenwich (might have cooled us down a bit). I got back home about 4:20 and it was obvious one of the larger of these cells I had seen this direction had passed over home with puddles on the road and 5mm in the guage.

Later on we had a storm come in from the NNW that got to yellow/orange on the radar around Richmond but completely fell apart just as it got here about 5:30 with just some light rain and a bit of wind. There had been a few rumbles of thunder from that one on approach but gone by the time it got here.

9 weather tonight showed a brief shot of a tree down on a car from today's efforts without saying where it was.

[Hardy25]

Got to love it when a beast come to you!!!

That was a bit crazy!!

beautiful structure there kristy, and yes love it when it comes to you, doesnt happen often

9 weather tonight showed a brief shot of a tree down on a car from today's efforts without saying where it was.

Richary sounds like a cool day. was staying in Richmond Sydney about 2 months ago, nice place and i believe the photo on the news was from the suburb next to mine, Chelsea Victoria

[rogeressig]

Some damage from the Aspendale Gardens microburst in South East victoria.. that hit around 7pm last night.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

[Hardy25]

Some damage from the aspendale microburst that hit around 7pm last night.

ah thought it to be a microburst =]

and you and i must live very close to each other, unless you traveled to the area to take photos

[rogeressig]

i live in sunny Keysborough, i really didn't think the storm would be violent, as I was south of Moorabbin airport when the first storm of the two came over, it had mild wind, the second one was raging.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

Storm Chase locally 13th November 2010

Nothing spectacular here - moreso the unusual case of an exploding updraft just falling apart! The second picture shows a new rapdily growing and solid cell going up with an outflow boundary on the SW side of the first cell. Well it collapsed without even producing much at all - indications of such a warm atmosphere and possible the outflow boundary went straight through!





Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Harley Pearman]

Evening thunderstorm at Albury Airport Saturday 13 November 2010

An account of this storm I intercepted at Albury Wodonga is provided below.

After doing my own weather forecast for this region, Saturday morning, I drove to Albury / Wodonga in anticipation of late afternoon thunderstorms. At Woomargama, I intercepted a storm cell which produced light rain where I was but heavier rainfall elsewhere. This storm produced some thunder but nothing substantial. I made an attempt to chase it however it moved into the hilly region of North East Victoria with limited roads so I let it go. I headed out to Lake Hume watching distant storms form to the far west and north.

The storm in the photos below occurred during the evening over Albury / Wodonga. It showed its profile over the Nail Can Hill Range early evening. As it did, I was amazed at how dark the cloud base was. It was moving SSE but was constantly backbuilding. My photos show a storm with a very dark base.

There was little cloud to ground lightning but allot of within cloud lightning flashes. It seemed like a rumbler as thunder was constantly rumbling through it. At the time I was photographing it, winds were a humid north east and temperature around the 24C mark. At the same time, there were two storm cells moving south towards it and the storm seen in my photos was moving SE suggesting a collision of three thunderstorms in the region.

A large dark base passed over me and the wind switched to a NW direction and became stronger but the wind was not cold. The storm passed over two thirds of Albury and much of Wodonga but missed Lavington and Thurgoona. The eastern end of the airport actually missed the rain but the western end was affected. I decided to sample the core by driving down Borella Road, passing the airport terminal and into East Albury. Near the Homemaker Centre and East Street, I drove into it and saw roads heavily affected by flash flooding.

I drove into East Street. I parked the car and the rain seemed to ease off due to a break in the clouds to the west. I got out of the car and walked some 200 metres along East Street to try and photograph some of the flash flooding that had occurred. At the time, I was not looking at the sky as I was amazed at the amount of water on the roads from the rain. However a new storm cell back built rapidly overhead and dropped a torrential downpour accompanied by gales over East Albury. I was saturated by the time I reached the car. I drove further along East Street and made an attempt to get out of the storm by driving east along North Street then Drome Street. However I drove into more torrential rain and water cascading over the road. I made it back to Borella Road near the airport and drove east and drove back out of it. I drove north onto Elizabeth Mitchell Drive to Thurgoona where I drove back into it. The two storms moving south were merging into one another and merged with the Albury storm to create large downpours of rain accompanied by wind across the region. I managed to drive back to my hotel in heavy rain at Lavington.

The airport weather station received 52.6 mm to 9 am Sunday morning following 3 heavy deluges including an intense deluge of rain near midnight. The next morning, I was able to check the Bureau of Meteorology website and noted that the Borella Road weather station had received one of the highest rainfall in the state by 8.30 am Sunday morning.

The photos referred to are attached below, all taken from Elizabeth Mitchell Drive looking west half way between Borella Road and Fallon Street. I chose this place as this offered excellent views of the storms coming in over the Nail Can Hill Range. The photos are taken between 7 pm and 8 pm just on dusk and sunset.

Harley Pearman

[Harley Pearman]

Further photo of Albury storm 13/11/2010

Further to my first post, please find below another photo of a very dark storm base just beyond the top of Monument Hill looking west south west. I was watching this with interest. It eventually became hidden by rain not long after I took the photo. The cloud hangs below the base and was one of many cloud formations I observed during this thunderstorm event.



Harley Pearman

[Harley Pearman]

Storm tree damage at Culcairn / Heavy rain / some flooding at Wagga Wagga

On Sunday, I was expecting further thunderstorms around the Wagga Wagga and Gundagai region so I drove from Lavington to Wagga Wagga and had a short stop at Culcairn. I had noticed that there had been heavy rain around the small town and creeks were overflowing.

I walked along the main street to the western side of town and discovered very recent and fresh storm damage on this side of town. Parts of trees had been torn down and heavy leaf stripping had occurred. It appears that a thunderstorm had occurred the previous night producing localised gales or a downburst / microburst had occurred causing the damage. A photo is attached. I then drove to Wagga Wagga. I was under low cloud but approximately 30 km from Wagga Wagga, I drove into increasing heavy rain showers and at Wagga Wagga, I drove into torrential rain showers which had caused some local flooding as observed in one of my photos below. I heard one rumble of thunder which was audible but the showers turned to rain periods and the system became a rain band or a rain complex. Rainfalls ranged from light to moderate to heavy in intensity.

As it was clear that there would be no further thunderstorm activity around Wagga Wagga, I then drove to Gundagai in heavy rain. I broke out of the rain 20 km south of Gundagai into cloudy skies. I would have liked more thunderstorm activity however shower activity soon increased again which turned to rain periods. I left Gundagai and drove 180 km to Goulburn. I finally cleared the rain band into partly cloudy skies just south of Goulburn where I observed a thunderstorm cell nearby. By the time I had a vantage point just south of town, the storm was weakening. The rain band was catching up and cloud was building ahead of that rain band. I observed one within cloud lightning flash but nothing more. The left over remnants of the storm merged with the cloud and rain band. Unfortunately, the cloud and thunderstorms based on what I saw, merged into a rain band as it crossed into Eastern New South Wales.

I spent the night in Goulburn after watching the remnants of the days storm cells decay at dusk and returned to Sydney early Monday morning.


Harley Pearman