Topic: VIC/NSW Showers/Storms 20-22 November 2009

[Kristy Norman]

Thought I should start a thread for Victoria/New South Wales extreme heat, dust storms and the cool change with storms.
The first storm of the day has just passed. Visibility is still very poor due to all of the raised dust and temperatures are still high, currenntly Yarrawonga (our closest town) has reached 40.6 at 3pm.
Very little amount of rain but large drops, and the strong, hot gusty winds forecast have hit with a vengence.
Not a nice day!
More storms must be building as the thunder is getting louder, can't see anything due to dust.
Fire danger/Fire weather warning for the Southern Riverina is : Catastrophic 100+.

[TroyVR]

Sky over Sydney was lit up well during the storm, here's a few frame extracts from the videos i took. I got a bit close for comfort in the 1st one.

Taken from roof of Westfields Miranda looking West / NW

Picture 5 was taken at Cronulla as the storm moved away.

A short video of the 1st strike, then in slow mo.

[Shaun Galman]

Hi guys,

Just noticed a nice couple of storms over the Inverell area on radar (as of 6:20pm EDT) about to converge. One moving in from the NE and the other coming up from the S.

Still hot and dry here at the Ridge. Peaked around 44.2˚c today with strong Northerlies blowing like a blast furnace! You know it's pretty hot when you don't sweat due to it evaporating off you!

Take care if chasing the storms today!

Nice captures by the way TroyVR! Very impressive strikes.
Kindest regards,
Shauno

[Harley Pearman]

Sydney thunderstorm 20 November 2009

I took the photos below from the roof of the car park in Newton Road Blacktown. The storm was high based but dropped very little rain where I was. Although Prospect to the south had 7.4 mm of rain.

The storm was lightning active and reading the news it appears that a number of fires may have been started across portions of the Blue Mountains in Sydney's west.

Temperatures reached 40C to 42C in Sydney's West including Blacktown, Liverpool, Penrith and Richmond prior to the event.

Looking at the weather stations across Sydney, Penrith in Sydney's far west had a wind gust of 94 km/h at 2.02 pm with no rain and again at 2.10 pm. Liverpool had 2 mm of rain.

Troy, the lightning photos you took are impressive and the first one appears to show the white building being struck or very close to the strike. It seems to be very close to you.

Harley Pearman

[Jason(pato)]

Wow Troy great captures!!! If I'm not mistaken is that a really fine tendril of lightning between you and that dark blue car? If it is that child and you for that matter are quite lucky you didn't feel the effects. Hope you were wearing your brown undies today 

[Richary]

Troy that does look rather like a nice leader coming up in front of the car not that far away from where you were standing!

I had to leave Chatswood just as the storms rolled through and head to Artarmon then Kogarah. A bit of a display with some nice strikes in the Chatswood region as well as down towards the city as I went through there. Later at Newington and near home were a couple of nice bolts as well about 6:20pm.

One home at Castle Cove was destroyed by fire after a direct strike as well - see

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/20/2749303.htm

[canoncloud]

Hi guys, this is my first post on here, and it looks quite more informative than weatherzone.

Anyway, I am not a professional forecaster, but i rang one today. 5.95 a minute for him to tell me to go to goulburn / canberra, to the ranges. Thats where the action was at. Unfortunatley no. It wasnt at all. It was right where i live, in Helensburgh. So i missed it.

Structure was ok at Taralga but after 370 kms, I have been left extremely disapointed. The convective outlook for today also looked promising, But i think someone is just showing off their colouring in skills with their red pen.

So, apparently tomorrow there is meant to be thunderstorms, and I am putting it to you guys...

Is it at all possible you could forecast where to go tomorrow?

Cheers guys...

[Richary]

Welcome canoncloud. I'm not professional or that experienced but looking at the charts I would guess Sydney area has a slight chance of storms or maybe stuff forming west of the ranges later in the afternoon towards Bathurst. But it doesn't look that promising.

Check out http://forecasts.bsch.au.com/stormcast.html

Where the high lifted index and CAPE forecasts are will probably be where the storms will fire up if they do. There are many other factors that come into it like humidity, but looking at tomorrow's readings while we may get storms they are unlikely to be big ones (hail, good structure etc). Happy to be corrected by the more experienced chasers here though.

[Darinka]

Hi Guys,
Great to see what happened with the storms around the Sydney area today, great pictures & Vid Captures.  Wasn't in the area although I heard on the radio that lightning had caused at least 2 house fires....couldn't believe it, so thanks Richary for posting the link.

Thanks for Sharing,
Regards, Darinka

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

I was really not expected to chase yesterday 20th November but with all the lightning, I decided to head up to Newcastle with the family for any further lightning activity since I was unable to film the action from school.

May have got some half decent lightning on video but not really any luck with the camera. With most of the activity either off the coast or further north towards Bulahdelah, we simply went home.

[Peter J]

Darinka - nice to see your lightning photo made it on the Weather Channell this morning!!!

To rest:

It has been very unusual weather here in outer-east Melbourne the last few weeks. Heatwaves, storms, and some rain.
Today has had some rain here, then humid muggy overcast weather, followed by a nice light thunderstorm about 30 mins ago, Only 4mm measured wiith cool change yesterday.

Still doesn't look at this stage that this low will provide much rainfall here tonight. But I'm sure parts to the NW and N will receive some decent falls up to 20mm.

Big Pete
(grateful for the change!)

[Kristy Norman]

Hi all,
We have recieved 19.5mm of rainfall so far today which has brought temperatures back down to 21 degrees (thank goodness!!), however humidity has remained high all day making it feel very warm and sticky.
It's really nice to have a bit of moisture on the ground to settle all the dust of the previous two days.
It's also so great to have this cool change after the hellish conditions of the last few days!

[James]

Hi CannonCloud,

Welcome to storm chasing. It's not easy and more often than not at the start you will get it wrong and bust. My advice to you is study study study and don't rely on other peoples opinion all the time. There are plenty of Forum topics here and elsewhere that will give you the basics (and advanced when your ready) on storm chasing and how to predict what might happen for yourself. There is no better feeling than being able to look through the models, obs, sat pics etc and work out a chase destination and for it to come off with flying colours. It's this experience that will also show you when it's not really worth heading out to chase (unless you are really desperate - I've been there and done that lol!).

In regards to the message you got - I havent looked to much into it however I am surprised by that person suggesting Supercells tonight. With Moisture in the lower levels lacking, wind shear being quite linear and even ( with bases starting at around 8000 to 10000 feet) I cant imagine there will be any supercells. There may be some lightning about however the main feature looks to be the wind increasing throughout the night. Personally I would be heading to bed and then if something happens locally overnight then take some photos from home.

Wait for a system that has more surface moisture to play with - patience is the key.

[Michael Bath]

Some great falls for parts of VIC overnight - top one appears to be 103mm at Trentham.

Severe thunderstorm warnings were in place for parts of SA, SW QLD and W NSW overnight. The shear was pretty good in those areas.

[TroyVR]

I just noticed today that due to the heat on I believe Sunday, my cars L.E.D dash light lenses have melted and warped. A few of the L.E.D's themselves have also melted by the looks.