Topic: NSW & S QLD Storms: 2-6 October 2008

[Michael Bath]

A GFS reanalysis this morning shows instability a fair bit less than forecast - no doubt due to a better grip on the moisture situation. Also lacking is the northerlies that were forecast to reach the Upper Hunter.

This is the warning for the Hunter storm. I was surprised it did not include hail. None of the BoM warnings from NSW and QLD yesterday and overnight mentioned hail - all were damaging winds.


SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING - SYDNEY/NEWCASTLE/WOLLONGONG REGION for DAMAGING WIND

For people in parts of the Greater Newcastle and Maitland/Cessnock areas.

Issued at 7:25 pm Sunday, 5 October 2008.

The Bureau of Meteorology warns that, at 7:20 pm, severe thunderstorms were detected on weather radar near the Singleton district. These thunderstorms are moving towards the east. They are forecast to affect Maitland, Branxton, Rothbury, Greta and Lochinvar by 7:50 pm and Raymond Terrace, Kurri Kurri, Hexham, Beresfield, Morpeth and Bolwarra by 8:20 pm.

Damaging winds are likely.

[pingtang]

We also chased to the Denman area experiencing that same storm near Jerrys Plains .The storm produced some heavy rain and tiny hail as it passed over us. Structurally it looked its best as it moved east of us towards Singleton. Will write up a report and some photos soon as I only just got home. Also have some video so i'll put that up as well shortly.

[nmoir]

Hi  Michael , if you have time could you post the radar loops of the Denman storm as it split?

thanks
nick

[James]

Headed out from Sydney around 1pm yesterday afternoon not expecting things to go up till mid-late afternoon. Based myself between Jerrys Plains and Denman for most of the afternoon (surprised I didn't bump into you Ben/Phil). First few cells were pretty but bases looked to be very high based.

 





I was on a hill east of Denman when the Denman cell formed. Here's a few shots of it during the early stages (looking west).




From here it developed rapdily and put out some extremely nice CG's on the front end. Managed to capture one too - excuse the blur - no tripod.



I'm not so sure that this storm split. Well it did if you consider the two cells went different directions but they didnt both come from the same updraft region. From the east I could see some large bases forming on the southern side of the anvil rain. These formed into the southern cell.



At this point I headed north towards Lake Liddell trying to get on the northern side. As I drove out of the rain shaft I was greeted by one extremely low and dark base. Cloud heights would have only been a few thousand feet above. I drove further north west to get a view of the back end structure. Very nice and seemed to notice some rotation in the mid section.



There were some interesting funnel features from under the base of the storm. The best looking one was while I was driving - excuse the dodgy photo



Headed back into town and had some dinner before watching the light show later in the evening.

(Drove past you Jimmy and must have been Nick in a white falcon behind you. Turned around but you guys had left - sorry I missed you.)

[James]

I'm not so sure that this storm split. Well it did if you consider the two cells went different directions but they didnt both come from the same updraft region. From the east I could see some large bases forming on the southern side of the anvil rain. These formed into the southern cell.

I have just looked at the archived radar for Williamtown. Certainly seems to show it splitting there. It's weird as from where I was (right in front of the right cell the bases seemed to form on the edge before low scud cloud really started to be drawn into the base (As per Nicks photo).

[Mike]

Neat images James and Nick.  Loved the in-car shots as you were on the go, gives a nice perspective!  I was wondering if you guys were out chasing when I viewed the radar...great stuff!  You have an extensive band of showers coming through with embedded storms looking at Grafton radar ATM?  SSW issued but will it amount to anything?

[Shaun Galman]

Hi guys,
Great reports and photos by all! What an awesome little LP cell!

Upper Western Storm Report. 5th & 6th Oct. 2008
I'm also happy to report we had a great evening's chase out here too! Russ and myself headed out and met up on the first signs of cell activity approaching from the West at around 5pm (right in the middle of the NRL final lol?) I shot 3 sunset lit cells that were only sparsely active so I just couldn't manage to catch any lightning at that point and the rain cores soon arrived overhead so we called it quits for the time being. At 8pm we had the second set of storms come past town, these would also split around us but that worked as the rain stayed away for some time and allowed us to keep shooting the still fairly distant lightning. We saw (and subsequently missed) a gorgeous crawler come from the rear of the main cell (sitting to our NE) and come straight towards us and cover the whole sky! We managed a few "ok" shots from these but nothing spectacular. The rain set in and killed things off again so we each headed home for dinner. At this time I said to Russ that if at any point storms approached during the night to let me know as conditions were still primed for action in the Upper Western area, particularly also that there was a large storm front brewing out between Bourke and Brewarrina.

I think I got a whole hour's light sleep with strong winds dropping branches onto the roof so I knew something wasn't far away. At 1:10am my phone went off! it was Russ saying the monster approaches! He came and picked me up and we positioned ourselves on the western edge of town to meet the thing head-on. The activity was ridiculous and spread over a couple hundred kilometres (it's worth a look at the radar and LT for that time!) Structure was apparent with a nice shelf being illuminated by numerous crawler and CG lightning. Some of these crawlers were shooting up through the clouds from 100k's south of us and made for a totally amazing sight that I haven't seen the likes of for a few years now!

I think the frontal shelf cloud finally reached town at 2:45am with a nice little flurry of CG action and sparse showers that allowed us to continue photographing without too much worry about getting soaked. We continued shooting in town until it moved off towards the east around 3am and I think I got back home at 3:20am! (things you'll do for a good storm photo!? lol) :D

I have several hours of photos to process but I will get the best up asap! I feel buggered and zombie-like today but very relieved to see some fantastic storms!
Rain totals for last night/this morning were 11mm.
Take care,
Shauno

[Mike]

It's those early morning buggers that have your scrambling out of bed with a head as heavy as dough!!  Nice to see you had some activity in your area - has been a drought of sorts !  Russ must have been on the net watching things evolve whilst you were napping - shame on you!

Look forward to the photos Shauno & Russ.

[Shaun Galman]

Hi Mike,
 
Yeah, I certainly do feel very heavy headed at the moment and the daylight savings isn't helping one bit. No operating any heavy equipment for me today lol! I was almost caught out napping but I had an inkling about what was coming and I'm always wide awake at the first distant rumblings

Russ has always been a late sleeper (with a good laptop & wireless broadband!) so that really helps to no end! I think he was doing a few house renovations at the time? I'm normally out like a light at 10:30pm so it really kills me to be out for that duration but it's all in good fun! :D

I should add that the storms we got at 2am wreaked havoc at Bourke (and Brewarrina no doubt) with damaging winds etc. according to the news. The storms were out there building for 6hrs on radar before they reached us here! They were high based but had a bit of kick.

Kindest regards,
Shauno

[pingtang]

I have uploaded a few photos and videos from yesterdays chase.



Some nice updrafts develop to our east probably around Singleton. Video can be seen here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXOXyF8cm3w



Later on a storm developed to our west with a handful of very nice CGs. Only 1 pic but plenty on video which can be seen below. This storm delivered some very heavy rainfall and minor flash flooding.We even got some tiny hail for a brief period. As the storm moved to the east we noticed some CAs though too far away for photos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di1OTJ3Js6A

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

Very interesting pictures from various positions and video placed online. Nice indeed!

Here are a few of the images I had on the day perhaps summarized well by Nick above.

The most amazing features of the day were the mid-level funnel and the rapid development of the cow-catcher feature.

[Shaun Galman]

Hi guys,

Upper Western. NSW Storms. 5th & 6th Oct. 2008 Photos

This was one of the first cells to roll in around 5pm. There was hardly any activity to be seen and this was as good as the structure got for the first lot of weather that came through.


This is part of one of the many crawlers that were very abundant in the storms that passed us by to the North around 8pm. This is the direction (facing generally North of town) that we saw a couple stunning CC's that filled the sky above us. I really wish I could have caught them on film!


Here we are at 1:30am-ish waiting for the onslaught to arrive from the west! It looked like this for a good hour or so with constant CG & CC's everywhere. Definitely an amazing sight to see a CC travel overhead through the clouds from at least 100k's to our South! They were taking several seconds to reach us and were darting in and out of the base nicely :D


You can just make out the approaching shelf cloud lit up here.


This was the second nice (close) CG to come out of the anvil ahead of the storm. I missed the first while moving to this position as it started to sprinkle rain lightly.


My favorite shot of the morning! These were some of the last CG that I saw before the shelf raced overhead and it poured rain. Luckily enough I had just switched the camera to RAW and took the lens in from 18mm to 30mm. I used a 20sec. exposure for all the night photos.


A tiny piece of a large CC that, again spread across the whole sky! You can see the shelf just passing over us here also.

All in all a good bit of fun and a great chance to test the new camera
Kindest regards,
Shauno

[Mike]

Cool images Shauno.  Like the second to last one with the two CG's exiting and the streamer bolt was nice.   Sounds like you had a ball - the locals were probably wondering which was louder, the thunder or you two hoot'n anda holler'n!

[David C]

A line came through southern Sydney today (Monday) so took a few mobile pics of the gustfront.

[flipwx]

Photo from the Sydney storm on Monday Afternoon, had an interesting base for a while.