Topic: NSW, QLD & VIC Severe Storms : 27 - 31 Dec 2008 inlcuding classic supercell lightning hailstones

[John Allen]

Well im in Bendigo, and looking to get some chasing in...the question is where and when will the weather respond to my wishes...im currently suffering a bad case of SDS. My current thought (given the stormcast predictions from BSCH) is to target Southern NSW (though im probably going to need some suggestions on the specifics given my mexican status). As for tommorow CAPE suggests up to  2000, LIs up to -6 and half decent shear (10 N-NW backing round to 30 SW at the surface) north of Canberra. My question to all you NSW chasers is whether there will be suficient moisture to warrant chasing the region around Goulburn or as far north as the central tablelands? Does this setup have the potential to yield storms which are worthwhile chasing (IE supercellular or multicells) from your experience? Anyones suggestions would be appreciated to help me have a good shot at this chase.   

The alternative is to try Bendigo, though im a little worried that it may be a bit dry to really get going. (Probably more potentially unstable situation).

[Michael Thomas]

I am certainly no expert but it does look somewhat interesting tomorrow. The moisture along the east coast is excellent at the moment with dew points of 20-21C all the way down to Wollongong. A bit dry further west though at the moment. I am a little concerned about the amount of upper level moisture in the GFS forecast soundings and the weak mid and low level winds. I might have a guess and say that storms will fire along the ranges just inland from the coast, similiar to today.

Michael

[Michael Bath]

STWs for parts of N Vic now, along with a large part of NSW and S inland QLD.
John has been keeping pace with round two of storms between Gundagai and Yass this afternoon. Cells have been pulsing into the severe range though nothing has stood out - although right now just SW of Yass looks interesting.

[Harley Pearman]

Anyone chasing in the Canberra region would have scored well 27/12/2008. I was in the region and at 7.30 am, travelled from Batemans Bay to Queanbeyan and then went SE of Canberra.

At Bungendore, I noted the first Cumulus towers going up around the Bogong Mountains after 9 am. After 12 noon, thunderstorms had erupted around Canberra.

I went SE of Queanbeyan to watch the action. A series of storm cells merged to form a squall line. I positioned myself in front of the northern cell SW of Queanbeyan.

I have not sorted out my photos yet and have not looked at them but they will reveal a storm on the northern side of the squall line intensifying as it was coming towards me. I let the northern storm hit and I received a battering from gale force winds (Outflow winds), very heavy rain and even hail. I received hail to about 1 cm size but it was the winds that made this storm quite intense.

Actually looking at the BOM rainfall plots later that evening, that storm I had peaked around Quenbeyan dumping over 30 mm of rain. Queanbeyan City had 34 mm and Canberra Airport had 31 mm and other suburbs SE around Queanbeyan city had 34 mm. There was localised flash flooding and allot of tree bark across the roads immediately after the storm.

East of Queanbeyan with the storm outflow dominant, that storm slowly weakened.

I would suspect that a "Severe Weather Warning" would have been issued on that storm given the intensity of the wind.

I then drove NE toward Bungendore, then towards Lake Bathurst and caught up with newly developing thunderstorm cells passing underneath them. South of Goulburn, I drove under a torrential rain shower but nearing Goulburn, I core punched a strong thunderstorm from the south without realizing it. I was wondering why I could not see the hills around Goulburn but then it was too late and I found myself within a torrential downpour with localised flash flooding. I could barely see and I was reduced to driving 30 km / h. That storm dumped its load and I saw localised flash flooding. The streets of southern Goulburn were awash with water with blocked gutters, roads were inundated and it was messy and rather treacherous.

After this, another small intense storm occured north east of Goulburn that did not last long.

The system died down after this. I drove back to Sydney in light rain. However south of Campbellton, I drove under another thunderstorm that was dropping moderate to heavy rain and occasional intracloud lightning. This was the last storm of the day and appears unless corrected by others, the most northern storm to have developed in this system as I did not see any other storm cells further north.

I have not looked at my photos yet but driving 430 km did prove fruitful and the Goulburn / Canberra / Queanbeyan region did fire some strong thunderstorms.

Harley Pearman

[Michael Bath]

Sunday 28 December 2008

Severe (flash flooding) cell just intensified over my place. Rain rate got to 170mm/hr with 29mm so far.  Surprisingly a stack of very close CGs and massive booming thunder has hit right here and now across the valley as the cell edges north - house shaking thunder! Webcam may show some structure if the low cloud clears.

http://australiasevereweather.com/video/webcam.htm

[Richary]

Hi Michael - I noticed the view wasn't quite as spectacular as usual on the webcam. All I could see were the nearest trees and white!

Possibly about to get the remnants of a weak storm here. Hope so (cool things down a bit). Nothing in it though.

EDIT - proved to be a little heavier than expected. A quick 9mm and despite little lightning activity before (just a few rumbles) it let loose two very close flangs to the west (the direction I can't really see from home) as the rain started. That obviously discharged things because there was no more lightning. Cooled it off a touch anyway.

[leo76]

That was probably from the huge dumping of rain.

Still some rumbling happening down here at Goonellabah.

[Dave Nelson]

29 Dec 2008
Hi gang,
                  there's a monster cell over Gosford at the moment  1315 EDT    fantastic mamatus display right across Sydney

   the cell is showing what I would say is a definate large hook echo in the (red/dark red area) radar in the 1300hrs EDT frame  (weatherzone)   actually  looking at that frame  it shows 3 arms  a nice pinwheel spiral

Dave N

Further info: ... (added 16:30EDT)  a fellow ham radio operator was in Spencer,  the Hawkesbury,   the storm passed over
the top of him, he had torrential rain, lots of hail and said the cloud structure was awesome to look at.

 I chastised him lots for not taking any photo's for me     :

[Shaun Galman]

Hi all,

Had a few active cells about on Saturday night that we photographed for a short time. One cell sitting to our NE that was stationary for over an hour and had several bright crawlers, nothing in the way of CG though. A rather large storm was positioned to our SE at about 80-100k's distance! This was HIGHLY active with a constant barrage of CG and crawlers shooting out on the front edge of the anvil. I took a couple photos of it as the cell to our NE had collapsed and managed to only just pick up the shelf cloud which surprised us! I will get round to posting a few of the shots when I can.

Some nice action around the NW slopes today. A few large storms moved through the areas of Collarenerbri, Coonamble and Moree. Seems to still be firing in parts with a little more left over for this afternoon I think?
CAPE was up around 2500-ish and the LI was just above -6! Along with temps still at 40.2ºc (analog) currently-3:49pm and I'm reading 42º on my digital thermometer.

The Moree radar seems to have been knocked out for a period due to a large storm that just passed through.

I wish I had seen the cell build at Coonamble as it looked pretty impressive (just before radar loss) around 1:40pm EDT. Looked like a nice guster style storm line at Collarenerbri.

I would also bet that there was a nice bit of structure out on some of those storms today! Surely that would be a given due to the isolation and convection taking place? Shear seems okay also? :D

We've only just missed out these last couple days. Gets a little frustrating at times, particularly when I can see monster updrafts out to our East heading away and going towards Colly lol.

Take care,
Shauno

[leo76]

Check out the VIS for Northern NSW/SE Qld. Looks interesting.

[James]

Photos of the Casino HP Monster from west of Casino this evening Monday 29 December 2008. This area is brilliant for storms!

Looking from Lismore at the developing base approx 1730.

   

Next are from Woodview (west of Casino) during the development stage and into maturity. The Staccato lightning from the vault region was simply breathtaking! Should be on video too  :D

   

   

   

   

   

 

This last one was taken under the base. I stayed in my position for another 10 minutes as the rain/hail and wind started. I didnt hang around too long for the larger stuff and had to be home by a certain time 

 

[Steven]

I know leo76, I was thinking the same thing. Huge cloud mass means something big is coming. I see the line heading for Brisbane is also back building to its north as well. I'm getting excited we'll see some action tonight! I can also spot the flashing high in the sky.

Oops I just noticed the lights dimmed. Not good.


James those shots are in one word. Wow.

[David Brodrick]

NSW North West Slopes and Plains 29 December 2008

I have just received an email reporting hail to 50mm and 20mm of rain just north of Edgeroi. I heard 3rd hand of a house and cars being 'destroyed' by hail the size of oranges near Terry Hie Hie. And ABC News are reporting that houses lost roofs and power lines were brought down in Boggabilla today. Tamworth Airport AWS recorded a 107km/h gust during the storm down there.

We went for a swim near Upper Horton and somehow escaped all of this severe weather but noticed lots of debris on the road and flash flooding near Killarney Gap.

Damn it should have gone chasing.. the storms cooled things off so much that it was almost too cold for a swim!

Cheers,
  Dave

EDIT: Just made up a webcam movie of the storm that crossed Killarney Gap (probably same cell that affected Edgeroi and Terry Hie Hie - I haven't looked at RADAR yet) and looks very impressive with lots of rotation. I think Narrabri was very lucky to have narrowly missed out today.
http://narrabriweather.net/events/11217-20081229.mpg

[Jason(pato)]

29th December 2008

Well what an afternoon. Cells started to appear on radar from around 1pm but nothing got going locally until around 4pm.
After checking the radar I noticed some development to the SW of Casino so I decided to head out for look. Headed to a regular location about 10km south of Casino to watch the afternoon unfold. The cell that had caught my attention earlier was powering away, but new development to the west of the other cell aroused my interest. So my focus was on this new cell, initially it wasn't anything spectacular but that would soon change.

Early development of the cell that would later hit the Kyogle area.



Things really began to get organised not long after this pic was taken, with a nice guster coming into view from the SW






With a nice NE inflow into this cell it was really starting to intensify quickly



Lightning had really picked up in intensity too with many close stacatto bolts followed by canon thunder. I decided to venture another 1km or so down the road to get a closer view and this is what greeted me. Apologies for the dark spot in the corner, this was taken from inside the car as it was really quite dangerous to be standing outside



The amount of close CGs was incredible and at times quite frightening, with many dropping in front of the guster into the paddocks nearby within 500m. I decided that enough was enough and decided to hightail it out of there, but not before grabbing this



I put in a call to Michael Bath who indicated that the storm would avoid Casino and was heading north in the direction of Kyogle. I decided to make my way to Kyogle to try and get ahead of this now enormous beast. I was racing the storm with the lightning still flashing away ahead of the guster. While in transit I kept stealing glances at the incredible scene which was keeping pace with me it seemed. I stopped at a location about 5km north of Casino to try and get a pic of the beast. I couldn't believe it when I saw it, the sky had an angry turquoise look to it to I snapped off a quick pic and kept heading towards Kyogle

 

It soon became apparent that it was going to beat me there and around 15km south of Kyogle it hit! The rain and wind was absolutely incredible, certainly the most intense I've experienced. I pulled over onto the side of the road and waited for it to pass over me, that took a good 15mins. Having a guess I reckon the winds would easily have been in excess of 120km/hr with the rain being pulverised to mist. Visibility would have been reduced to around 40m at most. Amazingly with the amount of greenage that I saw I only experienced sporadic pea sized hail

 

Once it passed I decide to make my way home with the possibility of grabbing some lightning pics on the way. There was small amounts of debris and broken tree limbs about, but I reckon more substantial damage could've happened closer to Kyogle. Got some nice lightning pics from the retreating storm with rain finally forcing me back to my house

 

 

In all a pretty amazing day and definitely one of the more intense chase days I've experienced,

Hope you enjoy,

Cheers Jason

[leo76]

Well done to Jason and James! Some great shots there!