Topic: Darwin Storm events 2007/2008

[Jimmy Deguara]

There is no doubt that heights attained in Darwin are immense - very tall towers due to the height of the tropopause.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Mike]

Perhaps those in the know could tell me where i find the tropopause level on the skew-t's I'm posting - have not got the TP indices on them ?  Yes, JD the cells yesterday attained some nice height very early on.  From what I could view they just went up and up and really had some gusto to them watching the caps constantly changing shape and exerting pileus as they did.  I watched them for about half an hour before taking the shots and there was no inhibition to them rising to whatever level they wanted.  The morning was pretty humid and the temps were around 27C at the time (9am), there was no wind to speak of at least at ground level and several cells grouped together on many occasions.

Some nice storms rolling through this afternoon.  Have posted the 00Z sounding which was pretty yuk, but replotting the temp at 29.7 and dew points at 22.4 at 4:30pm Darwin time things went from yuk to yow!  Posted current radar image of the things popping up and the nice cell over Darwin.

Several CGs banging around the city and there's plenty of new cells forming coming in from the east.  Maybe, just maybe they'll keep coming in around dusk so I can get out there into the thick of things and be able to add some lightning shots.

Mike

[Mike]

The skies are black as pitch as far as you can see to the east and south to us at the moment.  There has been plenty of lightning on the tracker but i'm yet to see any flangs.  I'm heading out in about half an hour to set up at my usual haunts as these roll in.  From the radar image posted you can see a fair amount of activity heading my way - Palmerston - but i usually set up to the south west of my home where there's 180 degree views as these roll through.

I'm confident of some lightning as even though there's a vast coverage of shower activity, I did notice a fair amount of cells peeking through the gaps in the main frontal regions.

[Mike]

8 November 2007

Observe and thou shalt receive!!!

Finally, finally a decent storm came close to the airport and I was ready for it!  Headed out to my favorite photo spot but the lightning was dying out with that particular storm, I noticed upper CC lightning gradually increasing behind me about 2 mins down the road so I packed up and dashed to a nice secluded spot (well most of it is..) and set up.

Did not have to wait long for some beautiful postive strikes that just blew me away - literally took my breath away. After the first 30 shots I moved just a bit further up undercover and got the CGs under the base of the cloud.  I think the airport got flanged to death this night!

I was especially humbled to the fact that I read the storms right and was in the prime position because I was alone for over 2 hours!

Enjoy people -  I have split the posts to save on upload size as I'm working on the compression thing...here's a collection of the 40 odd i took - I'm still buzzing with adrenalin!!!!

Mike

[Mike]

8 November 2007
Here's a couple more from the second location just up the road a tad...

Mike

[Michael Bath]

Good stuff, glad you were able to get out and capture those lightning bolts Mike !   It is very rewarding after waiting a long time for a great storm.

With the Skew-ts - the tropopause appears to be at 16500 metres on the soundings you attached - where the temp trace shows warming at the top of the diagram.
MB

[Jimmy Deguara]

Mike,

Certainly some awe-inspuring lightning strikes. Staccato behaviour indicates the bolts seemed to not pulse so much - was this the case? Well you don't want them to pulse as they create a very bright channel destroying the explosure of the rest fo the lightning bolt.

Good stuff!

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Mike]

Indeed Jimmy.  Even under the base the strikes were branching.  Did not see any single smooth strikes at all during the time i was shooting.  Would that have anything to do with the conditions? - It was highly charged for at least an hour, it died off somewhat when i was waiting for strikes every 40seconds or so - it was time to pack when this was happening. 

(My wife quipped after seeing the photos that now that i know what I'm doing, that every strike will be calssified as my best from now on - hinting that the one on the wall will be replaced with one of those from last night!  Maybe not replaced but certainly another A1 size goes up!)

[Mike]

November 8 2007

Monster storm rolled past Darwin this afternoon.  Radar images showed one very large cell converging onto the NW side of the city, but it actually split in two from what i was seeing.  The NW side of the storm continued with the steering,  but i noticed a strengthening part on the NE side moving away from the centre of the cell.  We had an extreme amount of CG singles, doubles and from about 3pm to now it has subsided - certainly a very good storm with lots of punch.  Anvil crawler i saw looked more like staggered horizontal CG's and not the spider type we're used to - this thing had thick channels!

Captured my very first ever daytime CGs also through the office window.  You'll forgive the quality but i was using sports mode on the camera and rattled of shots as i saw the lightning, managed to capture some of it, it was difficult enough trying to keep up with the CGs.

Not a bad days activity at least!

Mike

[Mike]

Just some details from BoM re that storm that hit Darwin on November 8 from which those daytime strike photos came from..the lightning detector accounted for 1909+ strikes, they said it is likely that there was a great deal more but the detector could not keep up with the number of them.

 The storm had stalled during the maturing stage as it reached the city and was not affected by the steering winds, seems it had 'a mind of its own' and actually strengthened as it sat idle the bureau remarked.  From what I was observing as it growled in, it certainly had plenty of kick.  There were three or four cells of differing maturity converging from the N/NE into it along a flanking line and the main tower on the NW side was just huge.  Even with a massive anvil outspreak and anvil wash, the storm was still producing CG lightning two hours afterwards!

Sat pics only showed the anvil wash at the time they were taken, but there's no doubting a pronounced updraught strength that allowed it to pump out the lightning so long after it looked like it was spent. I'm thinking that perhaps being situated between two land masses and stationary over the warm ocean this may have allowed it to use the available warm/moist air for fuel - whatever cooler air from the precip there was it was probably being recycled or exhausted around the splay zone and then back into the storm.

Mike

[Mike]

'wow' factor sounding today with replotting the current temp and dew points.  Surely this has to carry on into the latter evening!  Thunderstorms around my area at the moment with lightning fairly regularly.  Radar shows a line of storms heading in the right direction on a NW track, the storms in front weakened off but are gathering again behind.

Will post some photos later, want to observe what's going on for a spell before heading out.

Mike

[Mike]

November 11 2007
Headed out and got some fabulous shots of cloud structure and turbulance within the updraught.  Lightning was sparodic and a couple of close ones convinced me to get back into the car!

Here's some photos of the group of cells that is moving past at the moment.  A fair bit of precip with it, so unfortunately hampened things.  This will put a stall on any storms moving in later perhaps, but we'll see...

Mike

[Mike]

12 November 2007This is what some of the locals thought of as entertainment.  Big storm rolls through Darwin with Cgs every 15 seconds, hey lets stand out in the open and watch it!

Yours truly sat in the car in disbelief taking the photo!!! Added a couple of others as it rumbled past.

Mike

[Jimmy Deguara]

Mike,

Some very strong storms of note over the past couple of days.

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=526.0;attach=1714;image

This one in particular shows some quite strong updrafts. Any reason why we are not seeing the rest of the storm though? It seems you were not able to venture in the most ideal location - buildings in the way?

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Mike]

Hi Jimmy.  The storm was about 60km to the south of Darwin and it had gone through its most intense stage by the time this pic was taken late in the afternoon.  A couple of chasers reported hail and strong winds with tree damage and were questioning why BoM did not give a SSW warning.  From what I was told today by BoM on that storm it was probably a little overrated by the chasers out there - they did not consider it worthy of any sustained severity, but having said that the photo was taken around the corner from my home on the way out.  Most of the photos in the post are of the same cell as it was weakening through the stages.

I have a satpic image of a massive cell with overshooting top which was about 180km southeast today - saw it on radar and it was a giant.  Some chasers here calling it a supercell(?), but I'm not commenting on it - it would be very rare for it to have been considering there's no tropical disturbances around - perhaps you can give me some heads up from what you see in the satpic?