Topic: Severe East Coast Low and Upper Cold Pool: Flooding and Snow 5th to 11th June 2007

[Michael Bath]

Wow, what a great snow chase event ! Feel privileged to have witnessed one of the biggest snowfall events near Tenterfield - and it was great to have model output forecasts verified. I still cannot understand why the BoM had no mention of snow in their Northern Tablelands forecasts (and Northwest Slopes) until the 4pm issue when it was already underway.

Was rather cold although the temp didn't drop below about 0.5 C the whole time despite the many hours of snow.

Initial dump of snow at the summit of Mt McKenzie (1285m):






At about 1150m elevation here, when we met up with AC, Sercy and James. Snow fight was great fun, especially with the light powdery snow not causing any real damage






The scene this morning at the Mt McKenzie summit, and on the way down - it was a very long 2km drive to get out of the fallen branches and trees !!!!









Certainly the best snow I've seen on the Northern Tablelands.

David - not surprised Mt Kaputar got a great fall as well !

Regards, Michael

[Shaun Galman]

WOW! Great snow shots Michael! I've never seen snow in my life, not really snow country out this way lol? Not that you wouldn't have known that yesterday when the top temp I measured was 12.4c at 3pm! Hope I get to see snow sometime soon, it may just happen if the weather goes crazy like this again!

A friend of mine owns a very nice farmhouse (or it was anyway?) at Millfield, 15mins South of Wollombi in the Hunter He called us tonight to say everything has been lost there under 7 to 8feet of water. He had just finished renovating it! The moral to the story is NEVER BUY A FARM IN A VALLEY WITH A CREEK RUNNING THROUGH IT!

What an amazing weather event! Though the loss of life sustained was most unfortunate.

Cheers guys,
Shauno

[Jimmy Deguara]

Amazing snowfalls with some decent depth and especially considering it is June. I also cannot understand the lack of forecast for snow. I had only a brief look at the models and suggested snow would be likely - posted above!

Great you had a lot of fun.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Bath]

The rainfall totals and major flooding, and the strong wind damage in the Hunter region are incredible. Seems so long since a weather system did this in NSW.

Shaun - you could gamble on a trip up Mt Kaputar next time - there is good access from Narrabri. Would it take you about 3 hours to get there ?   Normally our snow chases from the Lismore area involve a 3.5 hour drive to Guyra, but this system was quite special so only needed to drive the 2 hours to Tenterfield for once.

[SnowMac]

  Hi Michael
Gr8 pics and David great pics also of Kaputar

My brothers and I left the Gold Coast about 5pm.
Just south of stanthorpe we hit some sleet showers and by the time we reached tenterfield there were wet flakes and it was snow, and u could see the snow on the cars. After tenterfield we had light drizzle again till we arrived near Glencoe and encountered a heavy snowshower and u could see the accumulations were rather heavy and the snow started to settle on the road. Once at the Ben Lomond range there wasnt much snow about and when we arrived at Guyra there was no snow. In morning we awoke to a nice covering of snow 4cm or so. We drove to Ben Lomond and took some pics before moving north. We decided to check Mt McKenzie out and there was still some snow about ( 1100m), but were unable to get to the summit (1285m) as the road was closed, and the time was about 10:30am.

Guyra



Ben Lomond




Aroud Glencoe view west to ranges

[Michael Bath]

Terrific photos Sam, glad you were able to cover that area as we didn't have time on Saturday morning to tour other affected areas.   Rodney also made up a huge snow ball like that and threw it onto AC's car 


I've put together an infrared satpic loop from 10am Tues 5th to 10pm Sat 9th June. EDIT: Now as an interactive loop:

East Coast Low

It shows most of the earlier rain band that gave the Queensland coast its good falls, then the east coast low and upper cold pool.

The upper low / cold pool can be traced back on the satpics to the morning of 31st May, but the loop gets a bit long.

Regards, Michael

[SnowMac]

Terrific photos Sam, glad you were able to cover that area as we didn't have time on Saturday morning to tour other affected areas.   Rodney also made up a huge snow ball like that and threw it onto AC's car 


I've put together an infrared satpic loop from 10am Tues 5th to 10pm Sat 9th June. File size is about 4.8mb.

East Coast Low

It shows most of the earlier rain band that gave the Queensland coast its good falls, then the east coast low and upper cold pool.

The upper low / cold pool can be traced back on the satpics to the morning of 31st May, but the loop gets a bit long.

Regards, Michael

Hey Michael !! Thanks
Great that u got to see that amazing snowfall. I think an early start to winter is great and it wasnt long ago Nov 16th 2006 that snow settled in QLD

I am downloading the animation gif now...seems our net is back to dial up...an error at the isp it think. Hahaha bet AC loved that  We arrived at Guyra at 10:50pm, so we mustve been in Tenterfield around 8:45pm or so maybe. I am sure if we left earlier the snow wouldnve been on the groud at Glen Innes i think.

regards
Sam

[Michael Bath]

Radar loops when the subtropical cyclone came ashore Friday evening. Quite a nice signature on radar.

Newcastle 128km scale

Newcastle 256km scale

MB

[Michael Bath]

Australia-wide infrared satpic loop from 11am Mon 4th to 10pm Sun 10th June. Loop size is about 15.9mb. EDIT: Now as an interactive loop:

East Coast Low

All my snow pics for the event are here:

http://australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/mb20070608.html

http://australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/mb20070609.html

[Mike]

We've seen the ship on the news but received this from 'friends in Newcastle' with permission.  Is 'storm related' as moving this beast onto the foreshore is no mean feat!

Mike

[Jeff Brislane]

That radar loops amazing MB! You just don't imagine that they can get so well defined as that was.

Jeff.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Michael,

Nice snow chase - certainly some impressive falls up that way. Was the police called in as a result of the tree incident or coincidental meeting across the snow?

That incident certainly attracts one's attention to being more alert on my future chases. The weight of snow obviously in the northern states of the United States and Canada is very well known for creating damage and also causing deaths (obviously ice storms are more likely the main offenders).

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Bath]

The police was there from dawn apparently to stop locals from driving up to the lookout - mainly because the road was virtually blocked in various places, and the hazard of branches snapping under the weight of the snow. I knew it was unsafe from before sunrise as I could hear the odd large branch crack and smash to the ground nearby to the lookout where we had stayed the night.

We did a photo dash and then tried to get out as soon as possible, but it was very slow going moving some trees off the road and edging around others.   

The policeman was very friendly - he didn't tell us off or anything for being there. Guess it's a very rare occurrence for so much snow there.  Rod and I probably have the only photos of the best of the snow at Mt Mackenzie given no-one else was allowed up there that day.

[Michael Bath]

I saved model output from GFS and TWC Mesocast for the 8th June 00z run. Clicks on the links for loops.

GFS Analysis and 24 hour forecast in 6 hour increments:

GFS Snow levels / GFS RH 700 / GFS Temp 850 / GFS Temp 500

TWC Analysis and 24 hour forecast in 3 hour increments:

TWC RH 850 / TWC RH 700 / TWC Temp 850 / TWC Temp 500

I think both these models did very well in their forecasts for several days ahead of the ECL and snow actually occurring.

MB

[Jeff Brislane]

How did the branch land on the car? Did it just drop off a tree as you were driving or were you parked at the time when it fell?