Topic: NSW/SE QLD Severe Storms (incl Lismore Hailstorm): 5 - 10 October 2007

[Steven]

Wonderful shots there Michael and Slavegirl, if only I had the chance to use my camera for one of these.

[Shaun Galman]

Hi all,
Looks like the afternoon is taking off over SE QLD and NE NSW! The lightning tracker looks unreal! We missed out over this way, getting just a dark-ish grey covering of mid level cumulus and a small amount of virga here and there.
Lets hope Wed. and Thurs. bring a repeat of this system but start off a little further inland (around Tibooburra would be great) so we get something out this way, lord knows, we sure need it (coughs from all the dust lol).

Cheers guys, cant wait to see the photographic outcome of all these storms your all getting over the eastern parts!
Stunning shots Michael, almost looks like a small lowering at the outflow base of that absolutely massive tower!
Take care.
Shauno

[Karina Roberts (slavegirl)]

its looking good from where i am in carrara at the moment, lightning activity has just picked up no thunder as yet so still a while away but there is definantly a nice storm moving in our way yay!!! :D

[Michael Bath]

Hope you get some nice shots !

A couple of lightning pics from here Sunday 7th October 2007. Has been quite active with lightning since about 4pm.







MB

[Harley Pearman]

Hello

Michael, they are fantastic photos. Impressive storm structure you captured.

I was analysing the Mt Stapylton radar (Brisbane) and a line of 6 storm cells were just west of the Gold Coast between 7.00 pm to 7.20 pm - 7/10/07. I noted that there was substantial weakening of several cells as they approached the coastal region. The northern most cell being the strongest cell had been warned as a severe thunderstorm at the time I was looking capable of producing mainly heavy rain and damaging wind.

This is the strongest storm system that I have seen this season to date.


Harley Pearman

[Karina Roberts (slavegirl)]

in this one an anvil crawler happened above the view of the camera but if you look closely in the top of the pic ( right in the middle)  you can just make out the bottom of it

[David C]

-- 08/10 --

The Brisbane sounding looks very good again, and even though 850 is not exactly too cool, I get the feeling that things might go off too easily, which of course would not be good for discrete supercells. The longer initiation holds off the better, as there will be some tremendous instability around with daytime heating this afternoon. The flow is somewhat unidirectional with pretty decent speed shear, and assuming more isolated updrafts prevail at the onset, this would tend to favour splitting storms. Still, it could get very interesting if one of these early dominant storms can tap into any surface wind changes later this afternoon in combination with that strong instability.

There's a fairly 'charged' storm cluster approaching the Grafton-Coffs region at the moment, and a warning out. Spring has well and truly sprung !

Edit: another cluster going through the same area now  (12:40) and a cell developing just south of Inverell. Definitely evolving nicely for areas further north.

[David C]

Inverell cell is now cranking along very nicely and is heading towards Glen Innes.

[Michael Bath]

For people in the
  NORTHERN RIVERS,
  NORTHERN TABLELANDS and parts of the
  MID NORTH COAST and
  NORTH WEST SLOPES Forecast Districts.

  Issued at 2:05 pm Monday, 8 October 2007.

  Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce destructive winds and large hailstones in the warning area over the next
  several hours. Locations which may be affected include Lismore, Grafton, Coffs Harbour, Armidale, Tenterfield, Glen Innes
  and Inverell. Some of the largest thunderstorms are showing the potential of producing giant hail.

  Just prior to 2pm Hail to at least 4cm and wind gusts of about 90km/hr were reported in a thunderstorm at Glen Innes.

-----
heading out shortly.

[Steven]

Better watch out Michael those echos look very nasty. Also what is with the low cloud on the webcams? looks rather freaky!

[David C]

Really, very impressive on Grafton radar. Almost definitely several HPs ongoing and in fact there appears to be a good meso on the storm due south of Nimbin at 16:12EST (Mt Stapylton scan). I suspected quite a few storms would fire up given the weakish cap however they are all quite happily surviving in close proximity.

[David C]

Appears to be an intense storm scale rotation on the storm west of Kyogle!!

[Michael Bath]

These pics were taken by Jason in the South Lismore area this afternoon - Monday 8th October 2007. Lovely 5cm hailstones !!

[Jason(pato)]

Hey guys and girls this is my first post here so go easy on me. the pics above are from me, michael kindly posted them for me.i did a local chase round my house(LOL) in south lismore.the first part of the storm dropped maybe 5cent pieces of hail then it rained for 5mins or so then i heard the telltale sound of larger hail hitting the tin roofs in my neighbourhood. it wasn't long before the larger bits started coming down. so i ducked out quickly and grabbed the bigger stones. i must stress though that the larger stones were fairly isolated with most of the stuff around the 2-3cm mark. the third picture is of the storm that was headed towards coolangatta at around 5pm. certainly an interesting arvo of storms given the ideal setup.

[Steven]

LOL the band approached us at 7:00pm and was okay for about 5 to 10 minutes then it just fizzled into some lightning and thunder, very disappointing for us, glad to see down south copped a beating and a good lightshow, I doubt any further development for tonight.