Topic: NE NSW/SEQLD Showers storms 18-22 Jan 2011

[Mathew Townsend]

What a morning!!! Very hot and humid start for today with beautiful seabreezes in early (not too strong though)! Some places already hit 30s already. I just looked at the stormcast and there may be some severe storms across the region for heavy rainfalls and large hail due to plenty moisture and dryness in the uppers. Due to this heat these storms may be electrical!

Happy chasing day one

[Richary]

I saw SE QLD had been severe warned again when I got home about 5:30 Sydney time. The radar from Brisbane showed a few nice cells, one of which suddenly turned a nice black and presumably did a severe dump of rain/hail over somewhere called Crows Nest NW of Brisbane (and probably in the Wivenhoe catchment). Hopefully most places just got enough rain to help clean the streets a bit of all the flood sludge.

Channel 9 weather in Sydney did mention reports of 4cm hail in SEQ this afternoon, and Channel 10 late news is about to show storms from Ipswich this afternoon.

The channel 10 report mentions winds of up to 95kph hitting Brisbane's west, with downed trees and 23000 homes losing power.

[Mathew Townsend]

Severe weather still hang around though!

Ballina had 14mm from that heavy semi stationary shower this morning at dawn. I think the convection has already started since dawn (thats how the showers to pop up earlier than usual). Now looking at today conditions, lifted index of -6 and CAPE around 1900 is very widespread. Looks like some storms would be severe due to slow moving process.

At the moment its very extremely muggy and humid hot conditions, currently at 26.8/24.8 and feels like 29.3. Certainly felt like Townsville!

[Michael Bath]

Been a very noisy and slow moving cell Lismore and surrounds. Lots of CGs by the sounds of the thunder. We are up 15mm and there was small hail (to half a cm) before.

Probable supercell passed near Dorrigo, Bellingen area. Jimmy is on it so will get some reports later

[Mathew Townsend]

Hi Michael

I just took a great example picture of mid level clouds appearing extreme instability outside. Days like this visual have a best chance of storminess in the area.

I can see alot of backbuilding stuff behind Lismore cell however they appear doing different direction than the main cell heading for Mullumbimby. Coraki cell may have a chance to come nearer the coast like down at Coffs which is doing the coastal movement (similar to 18/12/1998).

[Jeff Brislane]

Can't wait to see if Jimmy got some nice images today. The storms on the Mid North Coast have been interesting with a left moving cell from an earlier split near Comboyne going north east across the wind flow and crossing the coast at Nabucca Heads, then the right mover split again producing a stronger right moving cell that just passed through Wingham heading south south east. Awesome!

Jeff.

[Richary]

Probable supercell passed near Dorrigo, Bellingen area. Jimmy is on it so will get some reports later

The Bureau storm warning mentions reports of golf ball sized hail at Thora this afternoon (just to the west of Bellingen). Also 54mm of rain in 30 minutes near Kempsey.

[Mathew Townsend]

Here nice article about the storms locally.

King tide may flood Ballina

A KING tide will hit the coast early tomorrow, with the Richmond River at Ballina set to peak at 2m just after 10am.

The high tide is expected to force sea water up through the drains and flood low-lying parts of the town, including Tamar Street and Burns Point Ferry Road.

Ballina Shire Council has warned drivers to take care if driving through water.

Other areas which could be affected include Canal Road, Riverside Drive, North Creek Road, Uralba Road, Old Bangalow Road at Tintenbar, and the Pacific Highway at Cumbalum.

Tides for the Richmond River mouth would be higher than average for the rest of this week, with a 1.8m tide early on Saturday.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s severe stormy weather had coastal residents more than a little worried.

Dave Heggie, secretary of Ballina Tourism and Hospitality, took this photograph (left) of what he believes was a water spout or tornado forming over Lennox Head.

In June of last year a water spout crossed on to land at Lennox Head and became a tornado, causing massive destruction through the village.

“All morning there was a dark mass of cloud hanging over Ballina and Lennox,” Mr Heggie said.

“My wife and I went swimming at Lake Ainsworth and we saw what looked like a water spout, or tornado, forming up Broken Head way.

“But it seemed to dissipate.

“We were driving home when I saw that it was forming again, so I took this photo. Twenty seconds later it had disappeared, thankfully.”

The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the Northern Rivers yesterday afternoon.

Almost 50mm of rain fell in just 30 minutes at Corndale, north of Lismore, at about 2pm.

More storms are forecast for today.
http://www.northernstar.com.au/story/2011/01/20/king-tide-may-flood-ballina-streets-richmond-river/

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Ballina airport had 37mm last night however downtown recorded the most of 89mm where i am. The falls are insanely incredible and it teasing me too much! I havent upload pictures of beautiful structures yet from yesterday! More storms ahead now, i can hear thunder from cell in west moving nowhere due to lack of shear!

[enak_12]

Man I missed the start of the bello storm, that will teach me for having an afternoon nap. I woke to thunder and raced out the door I could see the base of the storm hidden behind the hills but it seemed to be weakening. I tried to get ahead of it to intercept near woolgoolga. I arrived just ahead of the storm and took some shots here of the gustfront and rain. it went out to sea and so I made the drive to grafton hoping for another nice storm but only encounterd weaker stuff, also meant I couldnt get to the Nambucca possible supercell. I'm glad I'll be able see the structure from Jimmy from the bellingen one my computer is down so I can't post pics of what I did get (I'm on my phone).

[Shaun Galman]

Hi guys,

A few nice storms kicking off around the place!

Just keeping an eye on a few "smaller" ones around us here, both visually (sitting out to our NE) and on radar. We are almost isolated by major flood waters so I don't have much else to do, not that that's a bad thing

Kindest regards and take care if out chasing!

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

I will post the images of the cell but to put in perspective, you are talking the cloud base being just above Dorrigo and the low cloud hindering any structure view! But I do have some video that can be placed online.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Ben]

Look forward to seeing the video Jimmy!!! Shane, Phil and I got onto the right mover near Taree. Thought we had busted till this storm formed and caught us majorly by surprise!!! A large amount of structure was covered by low cloud also, but when it became visible it was certainly not impressive. By the time finally got a decent view of it was weakening but suggested there may have been a wall cloud present prior with a highly organised rotating base on the correct side of the storm. Radar echos were also impressive. We briefly got caught in the core just outside Wingham and received 4-5cm with the odd 6cm stone, adding more dents to Phils car, and some strongish outflow at 70-80kmh. There was decent inflow into the storm which surprised us considering at first it looked like a gustfront

Storm early in it's lifecycle. 20 minutes later we got the 4-6cm hail
 
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Before we got smashed by more 3cm hail
 
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Onto the pacific highway near Nabiac where the storm rapidly weakened, but nonetheless had a big base with rotation

 
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Shane uploaded some video of the hail also Hail storm - 19th January 2010

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hey guys - looks awesome! Well done! More structure there than I was able to achieve haha!

Dorrigo storm and hail - video later.










I observed quite a few stors in the Dorrigo Ebor region and then opted out later in the day to head for the inland. At Uralla, we got another hailstorm with copious amounts of hail for about 10 to 15 minutes. Earlier, this was the storm. Nice inflow into the storm consolidated the shelf cloud structure.



Interesting feature!


Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jeff Brislane]

I'm glad you got some footage of that Storm near Wingham, Ben. It was a nice looking storm and quite slow moving and long lasting as well which makes for good prolonged chasing. Very interesting.

Jimmy I can't wait to see some video, the pictures hint at a strong storm over the Dorrigo plataeu.

Jeff.

[enak_12]

Thanks for posting those pics Jimmy seems like it might have been a frustrating position on that side of the storm and being on the plateau itself would have prevented you from chasing it off the mountain? Where were the hail pics taken? 

This is how the storm looked further up the coast as it went out to sea..






After this storm I noticed others developing on the ranges behind it and went to Grafton. Along the way the storm from earlier seemed to reorganise a bit off the coast and I got occasional glimses of it but there was really no where to pull over on this stretch of the highway and the road veers awaay from the coast to the NW. In Grafton I watched this other storm develop on the south side of town..











I had to leave now to pick up my girlfriend from work back in Coffs...