Topic: Darwin Storm events 2008/2009

[Peter J]

Mike

It might be worth your while keeping an eye on the second tropical low developing in the GoC, as it could potentially bring more flooding rains to you (and despite what the BoM are saying, it could be a low Cat 1 storm crossing over you).

Big Pete

[Mike]

Chatter all day here from others re that low.  It's a 1005 low and the JTWC had been eying it.  BoM have made comment on it .  It has some NW circulation and LLC but difluence (an area where winds on the same plane are flowing at angles away from each other) aloft was its problem.  They gave it a 'poor' rating over the 24 hour period - but they said that about Billy too and that became a Cat2.  Go figure!  It must have a dominant W/SW track somewhere in there because it's realistically heading for land by what BoM have to say below.  Not too much flooding for Darwin per se, the other inland regions will def get some large falls from it.
 BoM's flood threat advice had this to say about it:

 'A second tropical low is developing in the western Gulf of Carpentaria and is
expected to move west, over the Top End, over the next few days. It is not
expected to reach Tropical Cyclone intensity. It will generate heavy showers,
storms and rain areas over the Arnhem and Roper-McArthur districts during Monday
before extending further west and affecting the Darwin-Daly District from
Tuesday.'

ED:  JTWC latest give it some strengthening but still a poor rating.  BoM also have posted something in their TC reports and give it a poor rating lso.  Might get some decent storms out of this if it persists inland, but will have to keep an eye on pressure levels as it moves to us.




So looks like the camera stays in the bag for another week or I go out and take waterfall piccies.  yawn!

[Mike]

Storms Darwin 29 December.

A westward moving tropical low on the eastern side of the NT produced some outer lines with nice gusty storms today. A few single cells had moved through the area in the early afternoon with a couple of rumbles but a fairly strong line of storms flowed through from the inland areas around 2pm.  The line broke up somewhat as it approached the closer rural areas and virtually disintegrated, but the storms within the line found their own paths and there were a couple of nice gusty storms sweeping through by 3pm.  Gusts were in the range of 30kts and white-out conditions with the pelting rain.  There were several large CGs in my area alone, I spotted 10 whilst driving near home.  An unenviable time for any chase as there was a blanket of low cloud, but you could see the towers through lighter cloud breaks.

 Some banter about today's brief gusty weather being compared to pre-severe TC George a couple of years back with the amount of lightning and winds, but it pales in comparison.  This low displays none of the deepening to the extent that George was - that low was just plain nasty and what was forming into a deadly cyclone and produced that F3 tornado - this low is just a nice strong low with lots of rain and the odd gusty storm.  I wish it was a deepening low forming into a cyclone...the amount of lightning that day re-wrote the record books !


The monsoon has been invigorated by this low and we're expecting it to be with us again tomorrow 30th Dec.  That makes three tropical lows in as many weeks moving underneath Darwin towards the Kimberley region.  I'd hate to think what would have happened if they had been cyclones moving across Darwin and fortunate that the monsoon has been pulled inland so many times.  Katherine could do without any more rain in the catchment areas as the river level is up high enough already and with this third low producing some good rainfall they'd be monitoring things closely in the next few days.  Most areas received between 18-50mm today and no doubt inland areas a lot more.

The low is currently at 1001hpa just east of Groote Eylandt and still has some decent rainfall to it and is expected to hover into the Arnhem region for some days still.  Tonight will be one of those 'observe' scenarios to chase anything because by this time tomorrow it will be very wet indeed again.

[Aesacus]

I know Katherine is a little far from Darwin, but thought these photos should be put in this thread.
This storm came through on the 10th of January (with a very low CAPE and weak LI). There was constant thunder for about half an hour before the storm arrived, but the lightning died completely when it hit. The outflow of this storm was pretty amazing.
Here are some photos...

[cloudfairy]

Hey, beautiful pics!!!! Much better as what we get here atm.

I took some pics of the squall line yesterday. will post them later when I'm back at home.

[Mike]

10 january?  You still there?  If so for how much longer?

Huge structure of the storm there, David and a nice shelf cloud to boot!  That's the problem with big storms set amongst the monsoon regime - large, bulbous and full of rain and towers seem to all appear shrouded in a fine mist of condensation along the flanking lines with towers flat and suppressed.

At least you got something for your efforts considering storms were - and are - still very rare to date here!

Katherine radar loop ->  http://radar.strikeone.net.au/?fuseaction=loops.main&radar=423&numberofImages=20&dateStart=1231556400&dateFinish=1231578000

[Aesacus]

Hi Mike!

Yeah, still here in Katherine. I leave on the 20th.
We've had a number of electrical storms since I've been here, mostly at night. Since I don't have an SLR I can't get any lightning shots (or cloud shots at night), so didn't really see the point in posting anything until now. There are a number of cells floating about at the moment but the usual story is that they dissipate just before reaching Katherine (or they merely swipe us on their way).
Looks like Darwin has had a really dry run of late. Hope things improve!

David.

[cloudfairy]

I don't know if it is worth to post, but I think we need more action here
These are the pics of the line of 11.01.09
We saw few flashes somewhere in the clouds to the left but none when it was dark.

[cloudfairy]

the line yesterday was pretty active but was hanging around the west of Kathrine for sooo long that it took me tooo long to decide to go south. As I finally got there with Thomas, most of the action was gone and it suddenly started to move towards us very fast. It was very gusty and we left before the heavy rain could start. We drove about 80-90 km the Stuart Highway.
We didn't get much. Well, of course Thomas got the good strike.
I got no pics for posting.

radar

[Mike]

...and as Renate mentioned, this line dissipated into the night but at 3am it reformed with convergence from the sea breeze and went ballistic at 3am.  No guesses who was asleep!  So after dragging my bottom lip off the ground some very good friends of ours from Wollongong have been up here trying to get some storm shots without success for the last three trips in two years!  But, for some reason Darinka's better half awoke and this photo is the result. 

 Spectacular CG over the ocean adjacent Darwin taken from their hotel room on the 7th floor.  Photo credit to Darinka Braidotti.  Her husband Mick and their son Michael are avid chasers and when they visit Darwin they do the miles to get storm shots, but this one really impressed me no end.

[Darinka]

Great pictures Cloudfairy and David
Was down at Katherine on the 8/01/2009, met up with a pretty good line of storms which only seemed to produce heavy rain, decided to head back to Darwin at
6pm as we still had over 3 hours of driving.  After 30 minutes on the Stuart Highway these line of storms started to produce thunder and a great lightning show with plenty of cg's, but for the most part, it couldn't be seen for the trees and there was no road turnoffs or safe vantage points off the Stuart Highway especially with Road Trains flying past.

Darwin has been pretty quiet as far as storms go, and more concentrated inland in the last 10 days that ive been here, although i thought i would share some pics
from a line of storms that came through the Darwin Coast on Tuesday 13/01/2009 at 3am.  Pictures could have been a bit sharper, though not too bad considering being woken from your sleep, trying to find where you put your camera and getting a total block on the camera settings and guessing infinity in the dark while cg's are dropping (there were only 5 like these that i had seen) things can get ugly. 

Ps Thankyou Mike for the post.

Anyway hope you enjoy
Regards Darinka

[cloudfairy]

As I maybe have mentioned a while ago.... I shouldn't sleep.

Awesome picture, Darinka!!!!!

[Mike]

There's a mass of storm activity to our SW which is confined to a low pressure area - pity it's so far away and probably inaccessible.  Another line formed this morning around Darwin's coastal regions brought on by the onshore winds - fairly hefty rain and low slung.  I received 4.2mm at home in a short space of time (thanks to my new weather monitor) and interestingly you'd expect this sort of weather to be associated with low barometric pressures, but scanning the gizmo the pressure was constant at 1002-4 last Frid-Sat with little or not storm activity, yet now it has been showing hpa pressures at 1008-10 and we've got lines of moderate showers and the large cells developing in the afternoon - got me baffled!

The upper winds have been a Godsend of sorts over the past two days with storms.  Whilst they initially 'turkey neck' on the way up, new convection forms within the same towers and they do look healthy.  The anvils are large and are dispersed very quickly which helps clear the air for new storms to mature.  Last night Darwin was surrounded with great structured storms, but not a lot of lightning activity, they are meeting the sea breeze and turning more shower borne.  They are tending to like the calmer nighttime air and perhaps it's a little drier in the levels to produce the lightning, but trying to pick them is proving difficult.  They look like tall, well structured CB's but looks are deceiving.

If the monsoon has broken up then this shower activity must be from another trough - but it's very monsoonal in appearance cloud wise.

[Michael Bath]

Attached is an image of Hector over the Tiwi Islands about 05z 13/1/2009
Quite a nice example.

[cloudfairy]

Where did you get that from? that is beautiful view of him.
I try to picture him nearly every time he is there, but usually the sun and he himself put himself into shadow, so it is difficult to see any structure. The same yesterday....
attached how I saw him yesterday, from the roof of the BoM Building Casuarina

Two or three days ago he developed pretty late and wasn't that strong. But he looked beautiful in the sunset!!