Topic: Darwin Storm events 2007/2008

[Adrian]

Mike,

Hadn't noticed but you are right; don't forget tas.... otherwise someone will whinge

Cheers,
.adrian

[cloudfairy]

Did anyone of you catch the storm last night? Finally I tried to sleep and was too tired to get up and watch the lightning.


This weekend will be good for storms, I suppose. Just at the chart-discussion a moment ago they told us. So, I'm looking forward to it. Kakadu will be on easter, so I have plenty of time.

[Mike]

Mm well having to work until 12:30am was a pain.  Had glimpses of the lightning which was close, but the rain gauges went through the roof around the harbour area.   Here's the overnight rainfalls. 

Wagait Beach 191mm - across the harbour from the esplanade of Darwin City.
Channel Island 111mm - to the south of Darwin Harbour
Larrakeyah 72mm  - suburb within a whisker of Darwin city
Stokes Hill 52mm  - The wharf area where i was and got drenched at 1:30am trying to take photos!!!  My enthusiasm rapidly wained after that!
Nightcliff 73mm  - coastal 'burb of Darwin.

Sounding yesterday looked nice.  All nice numbers and during the arvo even saw plenty of stair-stepped thunderstorms around the coastal fringes thanks to the trough.  Lack of winds in the lower levels helped these storms stay put and release all this precip. Lightning was there, albeit in 2-5 minute intervals and mostly IC stuff with a number of close flangs grounded.

[Adrian]

Nothing to report from my end..... got up and tried to get a few shots but very few CG's from the home vantage point and the low cloud meant that I couldn't get any IC either.  The thunder was spectacular, and it would have been a great light show had it not been for the low cloud. 

Kudo's to Mike for sticking it out in the rain!

Cheers,
.adrian

[cloudfairy]

On Thursday evening I went with some friends to the Wharf for Fish&Chips.
It already was an absolut great day (I will make my degree desertation here in Darwin in Nov08 to April09).
As we got there I saw these amazing, fantastic, great beautiful clouds. And to top everything I managed to make some lightning pics......with my camera (Nikon Coolpix 4600)
That was the greatest day I had for a long time.

[Adrian]

Nice Shots !

I flew in from Katherine so I had a birds eye view of the four storm cells that were sourounding Darwin on thursday.

Unfortunately I didn't land until 2000, headed off to wharf for some photos and managed to miss the whole thing.

Did anyone get any shots last night (Friday) as I was in town having dinner and saw a few massive CG's between the wharf and the mall ???

Cheers,
.adrian

[cloudfairy]

No, I'm afraid, I didn't took any photos. But I watched the lightning the whole night (2am-6am) laying at NFIH campus.
It last really long, I was surprised about that.



These ones are from yesterday, probably in the wrong topic, but I like especially the first pic.

[Mike]

Missed all the lightning ops due to work and could only view them .  Was not until 2am before i got out to get something at night, but the post-multicell set up was amazing!!







deep convection!!!!

[Richary]

Some nice pics Mike. From the look of it you sleep during the hot humid days and live at night!

[cloudfairy]

Nice pics, mike!

Have you seen the wonderful lightning last night??? After I went home from the Pub I was overwhelmed and just couldn't go to bed.
There was lightning of a high frequency (for me, because I've never been here for the built up) and you could see them in a 180 degree field of view. (I hope you understand what I mean, I'm too tired for thinking in a foreign language)
Anyway it was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't stop watching and tried to take some photos. I so wished that I would have the right camera for that.

[Mike]

Storm chase 18 March 2008

Leaving work at around 12:45am I noticed some faint flashes within a cloud top about 40km to the east in the rural area.  I was thinking that yes, perhaps something is firing up!  I checked the satpics and radar when I got home and there was a nice cluster of storms maturing just south of Humpty Doo.  The lightning tracker showed 6 older strikes and one recent strike within a 30 minute time period.  Time to chase at last!!

I raced out to Humpty Doo where it was obvious driving there that this was going to be something huge.  Constant flashes inside the clouds, CG action to the rear of the storm.  After waiting a few minutes and trying to get some shots I realized that my fuel gauge said 'empty' - blast!  Angrily turning back toward the service station I realized I'd left my wallet home

Dashing home I observed through the moonlight a huge anvil that had spread out, it was massive!

After eventually getting fuel and returning back to the rural area, the rainshaft and downdraught area had caught me by surprise and the drive back there & home was atrocious.  Sheet rain and microbursts made driving to a speed of 60km/h.  I had to get to the side of the storm as it was obvious I could not outrun it.  I ended up parking just near my home just as the rain shifted and went around me and I was at the rear of the storm.  Powerful CG strikes were around me and captured some of them.  One particularly close one almost struck the car - it was pretty nasty! I estimated it to be less than 100m from the car - scared the bejeezoos out of me.  I had the F-stops way down (up) on the camera and it was still overexposing the photo - but you can make out the shaft and some branching....



I finally arrived home at 5am after chasing this beast and it proved a challenge positioning myself  in a location that gave me the best chance of photos - so much rain and a lack of a decent road network always makes me angry and that proved frustrating!

Two other strikes in the vicinity.

[Peter J]

Hi Mike,

Been observing as of 8pm tonight (you local time) (Sat 22nd March), there was a severe thunderstorm warning issued for the Darwin area. Did anything come from this? At least according to BoM observations, the local Darwin area did receive a healthy 20mm or so in 1hr from these storms.

Big Pete
(just keeping you on your toes whilst the weather down south is settled at the moment).

[Mike]

Sorry for the delay...

re the SSW - I don't think much came of it from memory -these buggers always burn out when they come within the seabreeze from Darwin.  They are usually fast moving and end up creating an area of mush in front of them.  This would have been cool to chase near a place called Annabaroo which is about 40km from Humpty Doo - which is 40km from Darwin - it does not take long to get there, but from what I have seen the lightning goes nuts out there as the line moves in.  The lines tend to breed in that area many times and the bigger storms always are found in that area.

[Adrian]

Sat 22nd March 08

Hi Pete,

Am pretty sure this was the storm front that caused the Severe Weather Warning (shelf cloud pic) it pretty much dodged the city.

Had to be somewhere for dinner so missed any other photo ops, as there was quite a few CG and CC strikes. 



Cheers,
.adrian

[cloudfairy]

OMG this pic is great!!!!!!!!!! I can't stop looking at it. WOW
I saw this cloud some stages before I guess... when I got back from Nightcliff Pool. There was a great lightning in it.....I saw lightning like sparks on the shape of the cloud.....like a stun gun (I'm not sure if thats the right word)
I took some pics, but there were too many trees in the way