Topic: NSW / S QLD Storms 4-5 December 2007

[Michael Bath]

Likely to be some severe weather around today and tomorrow over widespread parts of NSW and southern Queensland given the shear profile forecast by GFS.

Looking forward to some proper chase weather after a month of nothing much.

MB

[Paul Graham]

Today is going to be a very interesting day for storms, I think.  There's a characteristic, baroclinic leaf along a jet axis associated with an upper trough over NSW on this morning's WV images. Storms have been persisting all night in the northwest.  You can see a moisture plume on the WV imagery that covers the 'dry' concave side of the leaf.  There's bound to be strong convection in this region this afternoon.

[Jeff Brislane]

The Central Coast area around Wyong has just been hit by a nice supercell thunderstorm. The radar echo was very nice for a couple of frames showing a distinct pendant shape and it was a very large storm. I would asume that Jimmy would be up that way today. I hope someone got some nice photos of this cell.

Jeff.

[Jeff Brislane]

I went out this afternoon around Penrith again and was rewarded with a nice pair of severe cells that developed around 530 to 6pm. From 640pm I photographed them and caught numerous nice bolts but missed plenty more! I witnessed a transformer explosion and managed to catch the green glow in one of my shots.

Later on I was shooting an awesome rainbow at a local spot when a young guy pulled up behind my car and then got out and set up a tripod in front of me and started to shooting! He didn't even say hello! I don't know whether he was just a local or someone from weatherzone or what so I took a few photos of him to see if maybe Jimmy knows him.

All up it was a good afternoon of storms. But maybe everyone else is dead as this forum has never been this quiet in months!

Lastly I almost laughed myself off my chair this afternoon when the BoM issued a severe storm warning for the Central Coast cell at 405pm when it was dissapating! They were actually about 20 minutes late.

Jeff.

[Brad Hannon]

Hi Jeff, at least it's safe to say that I am not the tripod culprit   Some people just have no idea and no courtesy.  Regarding the BOM and their late severe warning, they did the same down here yesterday - issued a Svr after the majority of the damage (flooding) was done!

[James]

The Central Coast area around Wyong has just been hit by a nice supercell thunderstorm. The radar echo was very nice for a couple of frames showing a distinct pendant shape and it was a very large storm. I would asume that Jimmy would be up that way today. I hope someone got some nice photos of this cell.

Jeff.

Hi Jeff,

Got some photos of the earlier stages as well as video of it from around 330pm to 335pm. I have time lapsed 5 minutes down to 8 seconds in this clip. I was around 10 kms south of Wollombi when this footage was taken. Quite fortunate really as if anyone has driven the Peats Ridge-Broke road, they will know there aren't too many spots for views on it.

This particular clip doesnt show the full updraft just the side of it. Unfortunately towards the end of it the mid and back of the updraft are covered by cloud from another storm to the west. Although it looks like it is dying, there is a dark udraft region behind the obscuring cloud that is rotating around to where the sunlit updraft is. I pushed on hoping to get closer but ran out of views hence why only 5 minutes was taken.

http://sydneystormchasers.com/vlog

James

[Macca]

Short (720km) chase for me today down to the NR's (from Brisbane). Got onto the cell which developed SW of Grafton sometime around 3:30pm and watched it die about 4 hours later N of Casino. It exhibited brief periods where it took on supercell-like features, however, these never persisted more than 15-20mins each time (it did this about 4 times during its life). The most intense period looked to be when it was *just* SW of Grafton where it developed a BIG base and dumped a heavy core of rain (and I susepct severe-sized hail) and a barrage of CG's. It basically moved N which was slightly surprising given the shear, but not surprising when seeing the anvil precip consistently fall out to the NE of the updraft. This created somewhat of an outflow boundary which then saw updrafts consistently develop on the NW'rn flank and combined with the shear, it basically then propogated/moved N.

Pretty nice day given that I didn't expect that much. Another nice cell blew up in the usual corridor W of Casino and tracked N of Kyogle. I saw this cell from Grafton (and from further S) and it had a persistent overshoot and nice structure for about an hour or more. My drive home tonight saw some minor tree damage N of Kyogle where this storm tracked. I'd estimate 60-70km/h winds (or smallish hail...not sure which).

Photos here...http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/Chase-Season-07-08/041207/

Macca

[Jeff Brislane]

James that timelapse is interesting. It's a shame you couldn't have gotting in closer as you can just get a hint of a nice looking base in that video. Did Dann get any of the action around Western Sydney yesterday? I was out around Castlereagh but saw nobody else apart from that other dude later on near Orchard Hills.

I'll try and post photos asap of yesterday and the day before around Penrith.

Jeff.

[Michael Bath]

Tuesday 4 December 2007 NSW Northern Rivers

Headed out for a storm chase and met up with Jason. It was quite hot in the sunny and the early storms along the Richmond Range west of Casino and Kyogle were pretty ordinary, though it was nice to hear some thunder booming across the valleys.



We headed south along the Summerland Way to Whiporie to get a better view on the activity in the Clarence Valley. Was still a bit too distant from there to see the main cell approaching Grafton. Another cell had developed to the west of Grafton.

I continued south through another 30ks of trees to Koolkhan (about 10ks N of Grafton) by 5.15pm. Jason unfortunately had to head back to Lismore at this point. The storm was now looking quite impressive with regular CGs. A bit of a shelf cloud was developing too.



By 5.30pm the rain hit and had to shoot back north to Whiporie. This was just in time to see it go through one of the intense phases Macca mentioned.  There was very obvious rotation in the base structure between 6 and 6.15pm at this location.



It was about to hit so I moved another 5ks north for another quick view.



Raced north again to the next vantage point near Rappville (about 20ks S of Casino). The storm had weakened during the drive but soon reorganised itself. The main updraft boiling overhead, the flanking line and the amount of CGS were all full-on. Base rotation became quite apparent again. No doubt some severe weather was occurring to my south - did not want to be caught in that due to all the trees.



Waited till the last second before moving to about 5ks south of Casino. There was still a shelf cloud but the storm had definitely weakened.



Met up with Rodney but had no luck with the lightning. The storm managed to dump very intense rain just west of Casino - rain rates would have been close to 200mm/hr. The storm was gone within 15 mins of that.

All pics here:
http://australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/mb20071204.html

Michael

[Jeff Brislane]

Sadly there was a death yeasterday on the Central Coast caused by a lightning strike. The article from the ABC is copied below.

Lightning kills woman in car park

A 35-year-old woman has died after she was hit by lightning on the New South Wales Central Coast.

An ambulance officer says the woman was struck as she stood in a car park at Terrigal last night.

Two relatives and a bystander were taken to hospital.

They are in a stable condition.

[Michael Bath]

A few video stills from yesterday - have worked out how to use the new camera properly now !









Full sequences are here:

http://australiasevereweather.com/video/stills/2007/20071204.html

MB

[enak_12]

Heres my storm pic's from yesterday (the 4'th). The first photo I think is part of the early stages of the storm Macca and MB got onto. This part in the photos weekend to nothing quickly while gaining strength on the north west side which moved up through Grafton etc. Later on sunset a new line of storms developed in my west and gave off some lightning.















More here:

http://s27.photobucket.com/albums/c172/enak12/December%204%202007/

[dann weatherhead]

4th December 2007

Yep Jeff - I was out and about. Left work at 5pm thinking I was going home to watch TV and cook dinner and got home at about 9.30pm. Its been a phenomenal month - the central coast and ranges has really delivered this season - the place to be so far - first time in about a decade that has been true.

I left work not hopeful of the days end but intrigued by the sudden and rapid destabilization of the atmosphere in the last 15 minutes before 5pm. The sky filled with accas towers in 5 minutes and all hell broke lose. I rushed to Warimoo to find i was too close so I then cowered at valley Heights station as the lighting and hail was raining down. Upon my decent- got smashed with hail and debry, seeing big bolts of lighting cracking into the railway substations, blowing up one at blaxland.

At emu plains I saw the glorious double rainbow - or hailbow - and then headed back up to captured the stunning apocalyptic sunset sky.


The accas


The hail forming


The hail falling









The sunset show @ Mt Riverview


Colo storm.





 

I love the weather...

[Richary]

Interesting cloud formation in your hail falling shot! Some nice pics there.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Some nice storms have occurred in the Sydney vicinity of Sydney whilst I have been away.

I chased a storm on the 4th December 2007 that exhibited LP characteristics south of Dorrigo but collapsed when we got to it! I never was able to get good shots of it. There was an earlier cell to that had gone up earlier as well and this may well be the one that Macca got onto.

I also had a large developing cell with interesting structure pass north of Tamworth earlier - this also collapsed by the time I got east with the structure at the time I got to it becoming hidden in rain.

Just west of Ebor

 
Ebor


 Ebor to Dorrigo stretch


Regards,

Jimmy Deguara