Yeah it's been a bit wet here lately. Already we've reached 130mm in the 24 hours. A few gusty squalls last night with some downed trees and flooding of the usual roads due to being low level. All the catchments are full and the golf course behind my place is under water. The low is expected to reach CAT3 by mid-week over the NW WA area. Low Level Circulation is good with low shear and good storm convection in the bands. SST's are favorable also. The low has done the monsoon wobble as they do since picked up and sat over Darwin around 4am this morning. I was still up enjoying it all as one does! Circulating rain bands are visible with ground hugging black areas with the heavier precip.
There's been some banter amongst the other weathernuts up here about how deplorable the BOM have been tracking it and why they did not issue a watch for us given the slight damage and flooding...well they don't understand that these systems have a mind of their own and as of 3am this morning it was still moving SW and above us. If you see the track map it shows the predictable wave track they usually take when the steering winds push them westward..the bureau, regardless of whether they are forecasting and not storm chasers has no relevance to issue watches and panic everyone. It was still 1005-1002hpa as it moved/moves over us so obviously it would have squalls associated with it with storms forming within the bands. Kinda gets me very irrate when people want to mass-bash publicly the bureau for something they have no real control over. They issued a severe weather warning noting flooding and possible 100kmh winds, but this was not for Darwin, but the Darwin-Daly region to our west. Of course the low would produce such weather - it's developing into a cyclone for Pete's sake! It's just a little disorganized as it moves over us being close to land, once it enters the warmer open ocean then it will ramp up.
Some thunder being heard at the moment (1:40pm) but tis typical of these bands with embedded storm activity. Probably expect a flang perhaps but tis grey, wet, constant moderate rain and only 25C Brrrr! Will post some photos of some of the scenery (or lack of) soon.
SEVERE WEATHER WARNING
for Locally Damaging Winds and Heavy Rainfall
for people in the Darwin-Daly District
Issued at 11:00 am CST Saturday 12 December 2009
Synoptic Situation: A TROPICAL LOW 1001 hPa is located on the coast near Darwin.
At 9:30 am CST it was near latitude 12.5S, longitude 130.7E, about 20 kilometres
west southwest of Darwin, moving southwest at 11 kilometres per hour. The low is
expected to develop into a tropical cyclone as it moves into the Timor Sea later
today.
Locally damaging wind gusts up to 100 km/h are possible in the Darwin-Daly
District today. Heavy rain in the Darwin-Daly District is expected to cause
localised flooding of low-lying areas today and on Sunday.
