Topic: Storms: Central Eastern NSW 4th-6th March 2007

[MrPedagogy.]

None of the threads seem to fit so I started my own.

Dubbo was on the edge of a large cell to our South West over Peak Hill extending to the South East over Wellington. The storm front is heading ESE towards Orange directly behind another that is hitting Orange currently.

Dubbo is experiencing westerly gusts up to 43 knots at the Airport (7.13) and heavy rainfall currently easing. The Lightning front of this event extends from Gilgandra down to Goulburn in the South.


South West of from Dubbo East towards Peak Hill

West of Dubbo towards Narromine.

The Lifted index and CAPE indicates a decrease in activity tomorrow but still good chance of storms further East.

Please advise if the start or scope of a thread should differ from what I have written.

[Jeff Brislane]

We just had the mother of all electrical storms through Sydney in the last two and a bit hours. It was just unbelievable and I witnessed the most close lightning bolts from a single storm ever! I know a lot of people hype up things like that and say they saw dozens of close bolts but tonight I was amazed as we had at least 25 Cg bolts within 500 meters of our flat! At least 10 were instantanious thunder and the rest were 1 second delay or less. It was actually a little frightning a couple of times when two and three Cg's struck within 500 meters and 10 seconds. The lightning was very violent and some of the most violent i've ever seen. The thunder was amazing and very violent sounding as well. I recorded heaps of clips on my mobile phone.

I photographed quite a few bolts from before it hit to only 20 minutes ago. The sqaull line had great tiered structure along the leading edge and it would have been amazing to see in the daylight.

We also saw three transformer flashes from direct strikes and the last one was very close by and we actually heard the surge going up the powerlines in our street! We also saw a possible lightning fire. I'll have to look for damage tomorrow as there has to be a few fried trees around Penrith now!

Jeff.

[scottme]

Most crazy electrical storm I've seen for quite a while. Not a lot of rain though. It's still making a lot of noise now. We might get some more in a few hours too.

[James]

I completely agree with you Jeff. That storm put out some of the most frequent and close cg's I have seen in some time. Set up my camera at Dural looking west towards the mountains and managed to pick up this bolt hitting somewhere near Schofields/Windsor.

The second cg is near Fagan Park in Galston, hitting the valley around 500m away below.

[Dave Nelson]

 Yes!!!  another outstanding storm.  Earlier in the evening my wife and chased to the city's west ... Warragamba/
Mulgoa areas where we photoed several good looking cells that were reasonably lightning active.
Had to then return home for a while before I went back out on my own to Hoxton Park. and intercepted the
new storm from coming in. It was Very CG intensive and like in your area Jeff, there were many close strikes.
After letting the main core pass overhead I chased it back home via Canterbury and King George Rd's.

Outstanding nite
will post some pix when I get home from work

Dave N

[wol]

Yeah, I'll second that Jeff, I'm not far from you and just a crazy amount of lightening here too, we got a fair amount of rain from it, I'll check the gauge later.

Here are a few snaps and a grab from the weather radar.







Keen to see what some of you guys got out of this one...just awesome!

[Matt S]

Hi all,
I'm new here I'm From Orange and thought you guys may be able to help me out. I spent last night at my girlfriends house in a small town not far from Orange called Blayney, anyway during this incredible storm there was an eary and frightening green glow across the sky, it appeared with a flash and stayed for 5 seconds enough time to think whats going on. It then dissapered suddenly and there was the usual crack of lightning heard.
This Green glow only lit up a secton of the sky, I was unable to see where it stretched to as it went around behind the house we were out the front. There was no bang nothing it just lit up then everything went pitch black again, resulted in a temporary power loss lasting only seconds.
Then some 10 minutes later coming from the direction of a substation a pulsing red Orange Green and Blue glow could be seen through some trees when suddenly the sky just lit up white and then again exploded into a green and white. This I believe was a Transformer blowing up possibly, as the majority of the town lost all power. However the first pure green flash is got me lost as there was no substation from the direction it came from and it was a distinct setion of sky not the whole thing.
I have a picture of the substation event but not the green glow, I'll post it up a bit later.
Anyone able to help me out with what it was?

[Michael Bath]

Hi Matt, I have seen similar sorts of things when lightning has struck a power pole transformer, it can certainly last for a couple of seconds - there is an example in the video section:

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

the find the link for "16 February 2002 Western Sydney NSW" - Another flash wires or transformer [2.50mb WMV]

Was it like that ?

[Matt S]

It was fairly similar to that but seemed to cover a much larger area of the sky and was present for a good 3 seconds or so.

Regards Matt

[Mike]

Hey, look those CG photos are just fabulous everyone. Really, really great.  I'm continually going back to them to have a look.  Although standing next to the powerline towers is not my preferred observation point, but if you get away with it once for a great shot, good luck to you! 

Can anyone post some more CG shots, i just cant get enough of them.

Mike

[Matthew Piper]

That certainly was an extraordinary storm last night. Here in Liverpool there was also plenty of close CG strikes and explosive thunder. We also had a blackout for over an hour which meant it became very uncomfortable without the fans operating to cool us down in the heat.

Today there was also another ripper of a storm around 5pm when I was exiting the shops at Bonnyrigg. The rain and wind were a sight to behold and it looked just like footage from a tropical cyclone with all the rain lashing through the shopping centre entrance. Definately the most torrential rain I have seen for a while. There was also a couple of near instaneous thunderclaps which added to the excitement.

What an amazing few weeks it has been for storms at long last 

[enak_12]

Taken today at Sawtell Headland:




encountered some flash flooding on the way home.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Sydney's storms were amazing - I was out chasing further north so missed the Sydney show.

Firstly thanks for Michael and his patience providing information over the past couple of days.

4th March 2005


I headed to intercept storms in the Hunter but could not catch the interesting severe warned storm near Bulahdelah before it collapsed. I then proceeded to the SW Hunter when storms rapidly fired near Putty. Although not major, quite interesting structure near Bulga although the main cell was further south and weakening.



Then on to Merriwa





Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[James]

Although standing next to the powerline towers is not my preferred observation point, but if you get away with it once for a great shot, good luck to you! 


Mike

Although it looks like I'm outside, I am actually sitting comfortably in my car around 50 metres away from that Powerline tower. No way I'd be heading out there either lol! Had the windscreen wipers going full speed trying to avoid a 'CG cut in half by wiper' shot.

Love that lightning shot JD!

[Mike]

And Jimmy says when he took that lightning shot - whooooa!!!  Check out the branching!!!!  No wonder I get goosebumps looking at lightning!  Great shelf cloud photos guys also.  Good to see NSW firing on those days!

Mike