Topic: NSW storms 14 - 21st November 2007

[flipwx]

November 21: Central Tablelands Report, Photos and Video

Matt and I (and later on James) targeted the CT's on a chase after deciding that the area was quite nicely setup for strong convection. Good dewpoints with ample heating ensured that surface conditions were right for solid convection, however weak shear meant slow moving and more so pulsey type storms would be on the cards.

Photos as follows:

Updraft with pileous cap towards Lithgow:

     

Base with downdraft at Shipley Lookout:

     

     

Base Timelapse (4mb WMV)   http://www.ecstormchasing.com/video/Base_TL_BM_21Nov07.wmv 

Base of a storm towards Lidsdale:

     

Road between Mt Victoria and Bell:

     

It was an interesting chase at times, one thing I've never seen before is the interaction of a man made structure (in this case a power plant) directly having an effect on a storm! Basically we were watching the base near Lidsdale actually lower due to the steam being pumped out from the large power plants below! Quite amazing to watch! The photo James took shows this effect nicely.

[Mike]

Top stuff everyone!  Definitely a cacophony of convective cumulonimbus cloud to ground conductivity!!!  (try saying that after 8 beers!)

Great reports and photos - the state must have had chasers running into each other from all areas over the last few days!

Mike

[Richary]

Some very nice storms in all that lot. It has been a bit disappointing here in the suburbs of Sydney, all week I have been working around Parramatta (usually on buildings with a good view to the west). Every day I seen the clouds build up over the mountains, starting to form nice thunderheads then they looked like they blew through the top (inversion layer?) and the top off the cloud just blew away. Despite all the storm reports nothing happened in town.

Last night at least we did finally get some lightning around, with some nice strikes to the SW initially, then it seemed to miss us and the show went over the NE (this from Rydalmere). I was with the visiting country girlfriend so didn't try any shots, though the strikes were infrequent enough it would have been lucky to catch. Given the efforts of others here with shots I might have to look at digital video camera! I think a time exposure here with the normal digital camera would overexpose (too much light around).

[ThunDeRheD]

November 18, Southern Tablelands: Video

Hey Guys,
As Phil has said, Sunday 18-11-07 turned out to be a great day! Phil, Shane, Steve and myself all got some great pics and footage Certainly the best stuff I've seen in a long time, even ever.
Here's a Vid I took of that monster near Collector in it's early stages. You can clearly see the amount of inflow was quite awesome. Enjoy!
Jim.F

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgx-r3clshI

Lots more vids of this storm plus some very interesting features from an earlier cell just south of Bungendore to download here:

http://www.thunderhed.org/stormpics/NSW/Southern%20Tablelands/181107/

[David C]

Wow, great bunch of reports, photos and videos from this system!

I've just gone through and put the standard bold heading summary on any chase-log related posts, or at least those which did not have any such label. Hopefully this will make it easier to track things for anyone who might read the thread in the future. We'll have to use this system to ensure each post is in its desired context, or else think about using a forum system similar to storm track; ie separating forecasts, nowcasts/obs from reports.

[Shaun Galman]

November 21. Upper Western. Resulting storm damage.
Hi guys,
thought I'd just share a couple more shots from the electrical maelstrom that hit Lightning Ridge on Wednesday the 21st. (storm log above)
We all see the amazing display of lightning but rarely see some resulting damage, so on my travels around town I found one of the unfortunate trees that were in the path of one of those numerous dry CG.
 
This gum has, or had a diameter of 12inches. There is a nice radial formation of bark and timber, some of which are quite large, surrounding to a distance of 100feet in all directions (hence not being near trees in a storm!).

I looked closely for any signs of charring and found a small core of carbon 2cm in diameter traveling down the middle just off the centre core. There is also some burning and carbon present on the ends of the downed limbs.

This one for scale reference

I've just gone through and put the standard bold heading summary on any chase-log related posts, or at least those which did not have any such label. Hopefully this will make it easier to track things for anyone who might read the thread in the future.

 
Thanks kindly David, much appreciated!

Top stuff everyone!  Definitely a cacophony of convective cumulonimbus cloud to ground conductivity!!!

Good one Mike, bit of a tongue twister (about an F4)

Cheers guys and take care.
Shauno

[Michael Bath]

Thanks for showing those tree damage pics Shauno - a dramatic reminder of what lightning is capable of  !!!

MB

[Harley Pearman]

Storm Report Sydney - Wednesday 21 November 2007

Hello

Wednesday evening, I took the opportunity to watch, photograph and take some film of storm cells moving across Sydney.

From early Wednesday afternoon, storm cells developed and built along the Blue Mountains and I am aware that one such storm caused a power failure to some 15,000 homes in the Blue Mountains area.

Towards evening, one large cell approached Sydney's western suburbs from the south west and I took a sequence of photos of it. This cell later weakened but during its weakening phase, I noted a weak outflow boundary pushing east and the development of new alto cumulus castellatus cloud formations further east and overhead where I was.

One such cloud cluster consolidated and developed into a new cloud tower and storm cell to my north east. I decided to drive underneath it and waited for the rain to drop. With the cloud base situated over Seven Hills, a heavy rainshaft fell that resulted in Seven Hills receiving 13 mm of rain and occasional lighting. This rainfall figure was the highest for anywhere in Sydney during this event. The storm weakened after 15 or so minutes however, the outflow from this storm caused new shower and storm cells to develop further east.

New thunderstorm cells developed over Sydney's east and north following this storm. This is something that I have never observed before in Sydney in such fine detail. Storms were propagating within a narrow band, dropping their rain loads in very small areas, then weakening with new cells developing further east. This phenomena resulted in a few suburbs receiving rainfall while other suburbs missed the rain altogether.

While filming the various storms including a lightning display over Hornsby, I observed this phenomena on the BOM and the Elders radar network.

Harley Pearman

[Mike]

Very good post, Harley!  Very informative and an interesting read.  Look forward to your photos and/or footage.

Shaun - whopping photo!  Would not mind pinching it for the website.  I'd like to show it to a friend in the rural area who had the same experience from a strike on his neighbour's block which destroyed a huge gum tree and landed 100m onto his shed's roof!  You should dig that stump up and make it a feature in your bar room!

Mike