BoM visit 16Jan 2009
I was lucky to have an invite to join in to hear and see their morning 'chart discussion' where they view the past 24 hour obs/satpics/radar/wind profiles/storm possibility and also the outlook weather profiles. Highly enthralling and interesting! I mentioned to MB that I did not realize how much I actually knew because I understood their jargon and interpretation of things as they went from one image/graphic/satpic to the next and onto the wind charts. It's not as easy as the public thinks - a lot of decision making and deciphering models to interpret even a daily forecast! Plenty of info and I'd love to have some of their radar software!
A couple of things that members might find interesting is that as with NSW, Qld, SA and Vic you all have the SSW graphic that is posted on the BoM warning's page when severe storms are posted and you get that grid map overlayed over the area? Well we don't have that - yet - Michael oley has been working on this for Darwin. I asked him why on earth it was not done years earlier considering the amount of storm activity we get and he said it was purely due to the 'assessment factor re risk' per large hail. Not so much for wind damage as most of our storms do produce 90k/mh wind gusts when they get ramped up, but it is the hail factor that equates heavily into this expensive exercise.
But we should see this down the track so we'll be up on par with our southern counterparts. They also have new software for storm assessment and making warnings. They can create or delete storms on this program which show signs of being SSWarned and can also do a similar thing with overlaying onto different maps - bloody interesting I can tell you!
BoM do in fact work hard to forecast storms here and whilst there are some who give them a hard time, their workload during storms is intense. By the time they send an SSW it has dissipated, when they don't send one it fires up! This new software will allow them to make a determination quicker and give them space to keep an eye on 4 computer screens at once! Their window of nowcasting is pretty tight also, whilst they have several programs they can view for convective purposes, the weather is so unpredictable here it's no wonder they get given a hard time, but for my part it was fascinating.
The monsoon I saw and heard is traveling south for the winter but we're expecting monsoonal showers n stuff from tonight. The trough lies well inland and the low attached to it (ex-Charlotte) is not doing much at all. They said there was not much activity to our NW convective wise and most of the vigorous forming of storms/cloud is to the N/NW/NE A low and an eddie around the traps but not doing anything. The senior forecaster said that the monsoonal inflow through Asia and Indonesia was brisk! Gale force winds in some areas and through the levels it was strong and they were a bit miffed as to why there's not much more activity - although there was a chuckle throughout the room as he mentioned our 65+ rainfall from a couple of storms in less than an hour yesterday arvo from two storms!. A bit of finger pointing at a few officers as to say 'Well? did you pick that fella?'
It's given me a better understanding of the weather and look even further outside the square and the confidence to apply my chasing to looking at certain things around the atmosphere and especially the winds - they're pretty crucial!
* Added some neat cloud base shots from storms yesterday - the cropped one is something I've never seen in my life - downdraft pushing through the cloud and meeting changes in temperature! It looked like a dome lowering and opening up like a flower - insane stuff and was amazing.
Cheers all!
