Topic: Bucca Tornado QLD: Sunday 29 November 1992

[Michael Bath]

The Bucca tornado was rated as an F4 on the Fujita scale. It occurred on Sunday 29 November 1992 at about 2.30pm (04.30z) and damaged or destroyed nine houses at Bucca, Queensland - which is about 25km west of Bundaberg. Bullyard, 10km SSW of Bucca was also affected by this tornado. Hail to cricket ball size was also reported.

Photos are from the Brisbane Storm Chasers website. It is not stated who took the photos of the tornado.



More photos: 02 03 04 05

A separate storm spawned an F3 tornado at Oakhurst which is about 5km west of Bundaberg, and about 90km southeast of Bucca.

Some of you may remember the Australia versus West Indies cricket match at the Gabba in Brisbane where Dean Jones wore a helmet to protect himself from the hail that fell there - it was the same day as the Bucca and Oakhurst tornadoes.

Later in the evening, the Northern Rivers was also affected by severe weather. Over $1 million in damage was caused to property around Lismore from violent winds and hail. The size of the hail is not mentioned though it piled 10cm deep in some places. The satpics reveal the sequence of events.

Some of the weather data I've managed to dig up ...



Brisbane


GFS run 29/11/1992 00z

Instability: Lifted Index

Relative Humidity: 0300 / 0500 / 0600 / 0700 / 0850 / 1000

Temperature: 0300 / 0500 / 0700 /  0850 / 1000

Winds (knots): 0300 / 0500 / 0600 / 0700 / 0850 / 0925 / 1000

IR Satpics from 28th Nov 18z to 29th Nov 15z in 3 hour increments.

18z
21z
00z
03z
06z
09z
12z
15z


Regards, Michael

[Macca]

THANKS Michael!!! This is AWESOME stuff.  I love looking back on these (not so) old tornado events! 

The sounding is about as good as you'd want to see on the morning of a tornado day!!  Bit of mid-level moisture between 500-600mb which, when linked with the sat pic, shows there might've been a bit of cloud earlier in the day.  Cap is pretty tasty.  Further N of Brisbane there would've been more moisture due to the "source" of the lower level winds and if you plot 32/18 on that sounding....KABOOM!  LI's of -9 or so and CAPE (est) of  around 3000j/kg.   Shear is bloody awesome - and not overly dissimilar to November 15th last year actually (same area).  I also love how the nose of the jet is pushing right into the Bundy region (where the tornadoes occurred). 

You can also see how the cap was quite (very) strong N of about Gladstone with 850 temps soaring above 22C.  Seems like the Bundy (area) storms were the most northern of them all with the sat pic showing nothing N of that region all day (thanks to the cap).  Just what you want - the most northern of the storms in a highly unstable environment. 

I dream of the day of looking at another set up like this.  I reckon we have one, maybe 2 days per season where conditions get close(ish) to this, however, often there is just one minor part of a big equation that doesn't quite work. 

Thanks again for putting this info up Michael.

Macca

[Michael Bath]

No probs - I enjoy looking through the major events. Hasn't been possible to get access to too much historical weather data until recent times.  The maps etc also encourage discussion and input like yours, which helps everyone learn about the special setups.

MB

[Michael Bath]

Found James Chambers' article on this event - not sure why it didn't show up when I was searching the other day:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/thundery/291192report.html

[Julie]

A separate storm spawned an F3 tornado at Oakhurst which is about 5km west of Bundaberg, and about 90km southeast of Bucca.

Oakhurst is about 9km west of Maryborough and about 120km south east of Bucca.

Edited to add:
I was one of the lucky ones (or unlucky whichever way you like to look at it) to witness this tornado and was at the damage scene within minutes afterwards.  Too busy getting horses and children to safe areas out of the storm to be taking photos at the time.

[Michael Bath]

Some video of the hail that fell during the Gabba cricket match

Hailstorm at the 1992/93 Gabba Test match

[Aussiedamo]

I have posted some photos on my website of the storm that hit Goonellabah NSW near Lismore, on the same night as this tornado hit Bucca Qld:
http://westsydneyweather.co.cc/stationhistory.html