Topic: Darwin Storm events 2007/2008

[Mike]

A couple of flashes of lightning with embedded storms in all the muck overhead.  Constant light rain for hours on end and no 'real' monsoonal downpours to be noteworthy.  Whilst Melanie sucks all the life out of our monsoonal flow we'll be sitting in pea soup for a while yet.  It's not all bad, as if this happens we'll get daytime sunshine between cells and allow them to fire up given the instability.  On the negative side, no tropical depression type storms of oomph to chase or watch.  Until that happens most of my posts may be in the Melanie thread!  How sad!

Mike

[Mike]

The best way to find out what's happening re our weather at the moment is to view this link each day at 11am http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDD20510.txt  It is the flood threat advice that the BoM issue each time the monsoon is here.  The daily forecasts don't say too much, but these advices give a great indication of where our lows are, what they are doing, what the monsoon is doing and what's expected in the days coming.  It's generally what I use to monitor tropical lows and then use the satpics, radar and GFS data to guesstimate what may happen down the track.

Camera has been quiet of late with all this shower activity....

Mike

[Carlos E]

NT has issued a Severe Weather Warning (don't think I've seen NT issue that in a while) for the Tropical Low. Heavy downpours.

[Mike]

Several rural areas have already received over 100mm for the day ending around 11:30pm Sat 29th Dec.

Some suburbs have received in excess of 75mm in the last couple of hours also.  Rainfall experts at the BoM are forecasting around 195mm for Darwin alone this coming friday in the new year - perhaps they might want to increase that slightly given this evening's downpours - just relentless rain with gusty periods.  Even though I dislike rain for the storm shots, this stuff really is nice to sit outside and soak up (pardon the pun).  Had some storm activity around the harbour this evening, but constant rain and thick, low cloud cover only showed the flash and not the strikes.  Disappointing but expected.  we were around 180mm odd below average for December - well you can forget that after tonight's efforts - it just went over!

There's no let up at the moment either, radar, satpics all show slow moving rain bands.  Possibly connected to the deepening low to our SE over Jabiru, which is only about 300km from us. 

 Current warning herewith:
 Cape Fourcroy to Groote Eylandt
West to northwest winds 20/30 knots between Cape Fourcroy and Cape Wessel,
extending to Groote Eylandt during Sunday. Seas to 3.5 metres. Swell rising to 2
metres. Squalls to 50 knots with showers and storms.

These conditions are expected to persist for at least the next 48 hours and of course these figures can be up to 40% higher than issued!

 I'll be out tomorrow to get some photos of the flooded culverts and rivers and our 'surf's up' coastal shots.  Had a look at the coast during tea time and it's just a mess, dirty mushed ocean with white caps and small waves - we don't get 'waves' in Darwin so it's quite a sight!  The windsurfers will be jumping out of their skin!

Mike (soggy but happy)

[Carlos E]

Sounds interesting. I'm either moving to Cairns or Darwin soon, I'll probably pick Darwin though 'cause it has more storms. Although, anywhere on the planet has more storms than Adelaide. >_<

Look forward to the pics.

[Mike]

Sounding for these parts has some speed and weakish directional shear - eratic but is in the 1000 to 700mb range.  With some luck from Mother Nature she may give us some strong or gusty storms, WZ has severe possible at the moment in their convective outlook map.  Here's what the BoM have to say...

Locally destructive wind gusts to 120 km/h are possible with thunderstorms over
the northern Darwin-Daly district and eastern Top End this afternoon and
evening. Widespread damaging wind gusts up to 90 km/h, large waves and
abnormally high tides are expected along the north coast between Cape Don and
Nhulunbuy today and tomorrow morning. Heavy monsoonal rain currently falling
across the eastern Top End and northern Darwin-Daly district is expected to
cause significant stream rises with possible flooding of low-lying areas.

There's plenty of sunshine between the cells at the moment so this should assist in any storms that want to lift, although the winds may have them steering at an accelerated rate!


Mike

[Carlos E]

Yeah the radar has shown some pretty interesting looking cells developing.

[Mike]

Unfortunately they look great but with only strong showers and no lightning.  I would hasten to say that this is because they are low level topped rain bearing cloud units.  Here's a radar image of a wonderful line of rain bearing clouds with lightning passing the coast at the moment (1:54am).  New years day is forecast to be very gusty, very wet and wild.  Gusts to 120mh/h are tipped in areas within the rain bands that carry storms, but perhaps not in Darwin....but you never know!

Chase 31 December 4:00am

After viewing the posted radar image i thought I'd check the lightning tracker.  It was about 2am when i did so and the tracker did show some recent lightning activity in the trailing line of cells.  I waited about half an hour outside watching for any flashes.  There were some produced and were becoming more frequent.

 Bugger it, get the camera gear and go for it.  Nick Moir taught me an important thing.  If you take your chasing seriously, you'll get out there and get the shots that others' don't!  I have no reservations about leaving a note for the missus who gets up at 3am to go to work saying I'm out getting photos - she's used to it !

Checked out the Darwin foreshore first.  Definite regular lightning but hidden.  I decided to move further down the coast to Nightcliff which is about 10 mins from the city.  Luck has it that the jetty and carparks are locked till 4am!!!  Damn, okay I'll just park on the side of the road and walk to the lookout areas!

Managed a couple of keepers and missed a massive staccato as i was just about to open the shutter again - I did not want to overexpose the photos too long this time and paid the price it seems.  Nabbed the attached photo of some erratic lightning streamers that simply blew me away, I was so glad to get it in the frame.

The rain set in soon after and the lightning ended just as abruptly...I'm quite content with the one photo for the two hours out there knowing that I did the yards to capture it!

Mike

[Mike]

Storm chase Jan04 2008 1am

Lots of embedded storms pushing out intermittent CGs around the place.  Zipped out for a chase as an overhead storm pushed some nice crawlers out, but the storms are moving so fast - around 22kts - they are shortlived and without the use of a mobile/laptop with internet (which is next on the list) it's a rabbit chasing its tail waiting for the next cell to roll through.  I've been relying on what's coming in from the same steering winds and using the radio static for a tracking device - which has worked thus far i must admit! 

The storms/showers are roughly 40km apart and form in a short line once they hit the coastal fringe of Darwin City from the NW moving SE and standing outside once home you can almost predict the squalls coming.  Still air, nothing then you can hear the rain coming like a freight train as the rain band draws closer pounding on every house's iron roofs, then nothing again as it passes and then starts all over again - quite freaky to listen to in the dead of night.  The odd CG that comes really is out of 'somewhere' and that's difficult to judge just where they will come from and from what storm that is within all this band of showers...frustrating to say the least.

To make matters worse the passenger side wiper blade decided it did not want to play anymore and actually broke in half during a flogging down during my chase towards what would have been a nice area - self preservation driving in blinding showers takes precedence!  The substation over at Channel Island roughly 8km from me got flanged which knocked out our area's street lights for about 10 minutes.  * I must remember to stop near that substation for some lightning shots, it regularly gets struck from what I've observed in the past....and again tonight.

As the low draws closer we'll get more lightning, this stuff always comes hand-in-hand with the lows and I'm determined to get some lightning photos before it goes east and away from us....

Mike

[Mike]

Now this is a wild looking sounding for today.  I can't even remember the last time I saw the numbers for CAPE and LI that high...big dry slot at 500 is a worry!  Anyone like to comment on this sounding for clarity sake?  (Yeah I'm looking for answers the back door way...)

Mike

[Jimmy Deguara]

Mike,

There is more a worry of the capping inversion in the lower levels than the dry air slot in my opinion. It seems marginal whether the predicted temperature will be able to overcome the cap. Otherwise there is energy there aloft.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Mike]

The temp is currently 32.3 and the DewPoint is 25.5.  Would the rise in temperature thus far weaken the cap due to heating since the sounding was taken as there's plenty of sun around?

Mike

[Jimmy Deguara]

Well given the fact the sounding remains similar, one can assume with some form of trigger, storms could begin to form at that temperature. But if the temperatures in the boundary layer does increase overall, I still think it is a hard cap to break. There is also a mid level slight cap as well.

Anyway we shall see if storms do develop.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Mike]

The proof is in the photos !  Thank you for that.  We shall see what eventuates.

Mike

[Richary]

With my somewhat limited experience, there doesn't seem to be much shear in that sounding though.