Topic: NSW Storms 15-16 December 2007

[Shaun Galman]

Hi,
There's been quite a bit of development around the state in the last couple days. We've averaged almost 3 inches of the wet stuff over the last week here alone with 18mm in 23mins from an extremely heavy cloudburst that formed right over us here (Lightning Ridge) on Wednesday the 12th to start proceedings.

A real nice cell formed off to our south yesterday evening around 7pm and put on a real nice formation display and the odd CG bursting out of the rear of the flanking updraft, this cell skirted town and ended up heading out towards Walgett at 8:30pm. I was awoken at 3:45am (after only 2hrs sleep due to the fact it was still around 30º with very high humidity) by the familiar distant rumblings of a group of 3 quite large storms headed for us so I sent a text to Russ who was already out watching them approaching from the west / nor-west. We met up at 3:50am and headed down town to great the oncoming monsters. Lightning activity was quite prevalent with a nice mixture of CG's and crawler. As the widespread rain core hit town around 4:05am we raced for the nearest cover while trying to photograph but our efforts proved worthless as the rain came thick and fast, dropping 20mm over the space of half an hour, causing some minor flooding in the streets. A further 8mm fell across the following few hours with small storms behind the first lot. We managed a few shots so I will post them up soon.

Earlier on at 1:20pm today another heavy cloudburst came across town once again. Showing that the convection rates are really up there, as was forecast yesterday. This cell must have dropped a further 15-20mm in only a few minutes, but I'm yet to get confirmation. This rain cell formed and came in from a few k's out west looking like a white wall joining a large dark blue/grey cumulus and sounding like a jet engine as I watched it coming up the streets, turning my yard into a virtual swimming pool in no time at all! 

Definitely a decent summer pattern, not so much "La-Nina", more "La-Normal" for this time of year? Still have some decent looking storms to our north east and heavy build around so we'll see what eventuates this afternoon.

Cheers guys,
Shauno 

[Richary]

I spent Friday night to this afternoon at Coffs Harbour. Heading down to the airport this afternoon there was a fair bit of black cloud and lightning around.

While the storm was certainly not in the severe category, the storms were delaying the smaller flights like Qantaslink, with the previous 4:10pm being held up on boarding due to the lightning and getting away over an hour late. Our supposed 5:10 departure was closer to 30-40 minutes late after a 20 minute late arrival.

After checking in went outside to watch the entertainment. Certainly a few close ground strikes though it didn't last that long. At one stage the airport lost lighting for about 10 seconds (though the TV monitors stayed on). But I wouldn't necessarily have wanted to do the sprint across the tarmac in the middle of it.

Coming into Sydney we were placed into a holding pattern in the middle of clouds which was bumpy at times but no lightning/storms seen on the flight down, though visibility was nothing out the side for most of the flight.

[Shaun Galman]

15 December 2007 Upper Western. Storm Report & Photos

Hi guys,
here's a few shots of a great cell that formed around 30k's to our south on Saturday evening around 8pm. It was fairly stable in the lower structure but the anvil was literally tearing the tops of the updraft as soon as it was breaking the cap. I think this kept it to it's minimum size otherwise it may have blown out somewhat, it may have played a part in keeping the CG activity to an absolute minimum also?

A two photo panorama taken at 8:36pm. I was lucky enough to catch one of the only two CG to branch out of the rear of the updraft, unfortunately I didn't have the camera pointing to the west enough, but I caught something lol!

Not much in the way of CG but the intra-cloud lightning was quite frequent. I have some nice time-lapse in the photos of this storm as I stayed in an almost fixed position over the time we photographed.

8:43pm. A small CG makes itself known.

9:27pm. I took this (heavily cropped) photo some time after as the storm moved out to the east. It may have been 50-60k's away at this point. I was surprised at the structure I was able to bring out in the limited, very dark shot?

Regards,
Shauno

[Shaun Galman]

16 December 2007 Upper Western. Storm Report & Photos

The 16th kicked off WAY too early for my liking but what can you do, warm temps and ridiculously high humidity can hold these storms together for ages given the right conditions. At 3am there were three large storms approaching from the west (one bypassing us to the south), Russ had been out watching from the beginning and I was awoken by the thunder around 3:45am. Russ and I met up at 3:55am and headed down town for the first shots of the incoming storms.


After a few failed shots due to trying to compose a decent foreground I caught this CG, looking west at 4:17am. The rain soon followed and boy, did it rain!

We had to race for cover as the rain blanketed everything! Photography was a total nightmare due to the rain and sparse lightning activity once the storm hit us? This photo is looking north east along our main street. Russ took a few great street flood shots as we left from the 24mm downpour. A following 4mm fell across the next couple hours.
 

7:15pm. This 2 shot panorama is a great example of the confined rain cores we've been getting over the last week. Each one seems to drop 10-15mm over a few minutes! This particular cell was nicely active firing down several fierce CG on the northern edge of town. At 1:30pm we had 12mm from a similar cell.

7:47pm. Facing north across Opal St. and the cloudburst in the above photo had become much stronger with some nice formation as a result of a sudden moist infeed coming in from the south.

Immediately to our south and riding the resulting weak southerly was this guster. It's the first time I've seen a shelf cloud with no real storm to be seen? It had a great "S" shape along it's length and brought strong winds and dust but was short lived, almost turning into a roll cloud during the latter stages.


A couple large, highly active storms were present quite a distance out to our northwest up until 10pm but I couldn't get shots of these due to the wet roads leading to most of our outlooks? I'm just waiting to find out the rain totals from the evening, I'm guessing it should be around the 15mm mark once again?

Cheers guys,
Shauno 

[enak_12]

Heres some photos of the storm Richary mentioned. Certainly was some close bolts one which made me lose hearing in one ear as it struck.






 

[Richary]

Hi Enak

You got a better view of any structure from wherever you are than I did. Driving down from Woolgoolga it just got dark out west, certainly didnt see the structure you caught underneath. Was seeing a few lightning strikes out to the SW as we came down, but just out of a dark cloud mass among lots of other cloud. By the time I checked in it was on top of us and a few hits were definitely within the immediate area of the airport with the cracks heard and not much time between the flash and the bang.

[Michael Bath]

Hi Shauno - how were you guys for the rest of the day after doing that pre-dawn shoot ?  Always a struggle getting up for those AM storms, though it's ok if the storm cooperates with a decent show !

regards, Michael

[Shaun Galman]

G'day Michael

lol! The dreaded "all nighters" definitely take a toll particularly when the storms aren't photographically co-operative! Only getting 2 or 3hrs of uncomfortable sleep each night is becoming too common with these sustained high nighttime temps and humidity but yeah... I don't even remember hitting the pillow on Sunday (16th) night as I lapsed into a relative coma from a very long but interesting 20hour day lol!

I'm now the proud owner of a complete home weather station so I can give up to date pressure, humidity, temps, wind and rainfall numbers with the reports. (finally)

Cheers and take care.
Shauno