Topic: NSW & QLD Storms and Rain 9-11 October 2008

[Michael Bath]

A surface and upper trough has already led to some decent rainfalls overnight and this morning in QLD. Some totals are over 50mm with many in the 25-50mm range.

Storms have been active for the past couple of hours in the Central West Plains, North West Slopes and Plains and southwest parts of the Northern Tablelands today. The biggest cell at present is between Dubbo and Coonabarabran, with plenty of whites on the lightning tracker. Scattered activity extends south and east of there too.

[Shaun Galman]

Hi Michael,
Definitely seems to be a little unstable in parts, particularly towards the Central Tablelands where there seems to be a nice ring of storms around Dubbo that are spreading away from each other?

We have a mulitcell setup firing around us here currently. Seems to be a few active cells sitting about 50k's to our W-NW now that are active. We've been under a pretty dense Cu field most of the day given the moist winds that have been constant throughout.

I hope any remaining convection holds out for the next few hours to possibly give us the chance of a nice little (or big? No bias here lol) active cell to pass close by! :D

From what I can see here, with several large cumulus forming good bases around town, there may be some nice RFB out on the current storms? The shear must be slightly in our favour this afternoon.

Regards,
Shauno

[Richary]

Unfortunately for us here in Sydney the storms that have been firing up around Bathurst etc seem to be running out of puff as they come over the Blue Mountains and hit the seabreeze.

[Shaun Galman]

Upper Western Storm Update 6:05pm
Hi guys,
I'm just heading out with the camera in hand now as we have a large dark storm on approach from our west. Looks to be quite a dense rain curtain so I'm hoping to see a few CG on the front before it reaches town. We've been under the anvil for the last half hour or so by the looks. Seems to be fairly substantial?

EDIT:7:33pm
The storm, as I initially suspected, had some nice structure though the anvil was diffuse and the inflow winds soon became pretty strong and very cold, dropping the temps from 25.6ºc to 20.2ºc in no time at all (I was thinking while out there that I wished I had brought a jumper along lol). There was a nice shelf along our (Eastern) edge that dissipated a little once it reached us. I have a little timelapse of how strong the inflow was that I will have to put into GIF form and post when I post a few photos. The activity wasn't much, with only 5 CG in total from the time I had arrived at my destination. It was well worth the effort for the structure alone. I can hear the rain on my roof just starting now. Sounds light so we'll see how we go with totals if it gets a little heavier.
I will post the shots soon!.


Storm's may be on the cards again for tomorrow around the Eastern half of NSW also!
Kindest regards,
Shauno

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

Imelda, Kimberly and I are in Coonabarabran tonight for the Honeymoon trip (been waiting for a storm to take us out). The first cell we came across was the stuff east of Dubbo - totally outflow dominant so I remained well east of the cold outflow. We then chased the cell north east of Mudgee - second photograph onwards. The cell intensified just south of the Golden Highway and moved south. Initially a storm had developed rapidly northeast of this cell.

As we intercepted the cell east of the Ulan Road, it began to dump hailstones 1 to 1.5cm in diameter - at times in torrents. We followed the cell until the road headed out of the region. Back on the Ulan Road we made one last dash to the cell about 35km east or northeast of Mudgee. However, we were not able to intercept the cell except to observe some nice hail drifts. The storm was at times very active lightning wise.

We then headed north to Coonabarabran via the road to Coolah and Binnaway. Got some nice pictures of the scenery.

Ummm those hands by the way are Kimberly's - she holds hail in her hand for the first time. And there was a little twist to this chase - I got over adventurous and got bogged - just sank in. It did not impress the women but they saw the funny side later on. They saw good ole' Australian mateship at work country style! We got pulled out within half an hour as someone came across us. Thanks to Brett and their young mates for pulling us out. They had come around to photograph the hail as well.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Shaun Galman]

Hi all,
Great to hear you got out in the action Jimmy! I hope you guys had a great time and enjoyed it. Can't wait to see your shots

Upper Western N.S.W. 10th Oct. 2008 Storm Photos
Here's my photos from tonight's storm.


This was nice to see! Some CG were present but only 5 or 6 in total for the time I was there. This is looking SW from town. I have a couple panorama's that I will have to stitch together soon. They will show the extent of the gust front/shelf cloud.


Looking West from town here at the rear (or Northern most end) of the storm. The shelf was more defined here with large scud cloud almost touching the tops of the ridges.


Looking towards the NE as the storm edge skirts town, approaching us more from the W-SW at this point.


Looking NW. The inflow winds started to rip back towards the front. This was also the point where the temps dived almost 5ºc. and things began to die off. I realized you can see the effect of the strong inflow on the mid layer clouds in this image.

Looks like we received 2mm from a briefly heavy shower.
Cheers,
Shauno  

[Richary]

Still a chance of storms tomorrow in the Sydney region, and for a change of scenery happy to head out with anyone who wants to go chasing, up to about 200km out. More than that I would take the swag and just camp it.

If anyone has an idea of where tomorrow might be best and wants to give me some guidance, I am happy to provide the vehicle and driver.

Phone calls can directed to 0401 886 035 if anyone wants to go on a chase. If we are sitting there doing nothing we can geocaching instead while waiting for some sky action.

Have decided it is time to do some chasing, and I am not going to let petril prices affect my lifestyle.

The radar images today suggested to me that Putty would probably got the best storms and the following radar reinforced that. To get up high there and get a good view requires a 4WD to access the tracks across towards Wollombi. Have driven them before and will do it again!

[Jimmy Deguara]

More pictures at the end of the chase and from other scenes as we headed to Coonabarabran.

Full set here

[Michael Bath]

Wow - that's a lot of hail Jimmy !   I noticed the car looked a bit bogged in one of those photos before I read your description

Nice pics Shauno - surprised you missed out on getting more rain - was watching radar for a while it was heading your way. I see Walgett recorded 40mm.


These photos were sent to us this morning from Mel in Brisbane - taken on 9th Oct:

These pictures are from Brisbane and occurred about 3ks from the CBD. It was the first time I have witnessed something like this before. It was a real eye opener as me and my hubby and 3 children in the car watched this from the start to when it actually touched down. Once it had touched down it seemed to fizzle out and disappear immediately. The photos are not real good quality as they were taken on our mobile phone camera. I was a little shaken by the event as I dread to think what may have happened had it not fizzle out like it did. It was eerie. My hubby usually likes watching storms and even this shook him up a bit. We saw it being born and touch down on the ground and we can't believe it just vanished like that - we were really shaky from it.

[dann weatherhead]

Some great pics in here! I was suprised that their was so much hail around in those storms!

Shame about the bogging - I won't tell you the story of two impetuous stormchasers who were bogged on a farm road while a supercell went flying by...

[Michael Bath]

The VIS satpic loop for 10th Oct is interesting with a nice circle of thunderstorm activity around the upper low.  Outflow boundaries can be seen heading west in NSW and southern QLD later in the afternoon - they continued well after dark on IR satpics.

---> Satpic loop

[David C]

Very marginal situation in Sydney (greater Sydney that is).  There is conditional instability which has allowed some thundery showers to pop up, although the dewpoints have dived several degrees near where I am in the southwest 'burbs. If we see some moisture return during the late afternoon evening as per mlaps then it might be enough to set off some deeper convection. For now, I'm going to the gym......................

[Shaun Galman]

Nice pics Shauno - surprised you missed out on getting more rain - was watching radar for a while it was heading your way. I see Walgett recorded 40mm.

G'day Michael,
I think we just copped a bit of the side from that storm? It only rained briefly here in town but Walgett would have seen the full extent as it was heading in their general direction. I'm sure the opal fields out to our west received a lot more than us as they were in the rain deluge for well over an hour! I will ask around to see if I can get a rain total.

Kindest regards,
Shauno 

[David C]

Not exactly a big storm day, but a quite nice little cell has developed to the west of Wyong. Would be nice to be on the road to Broke, somewhere near Kulnura right now.

Stuff developing near Camden which I can see out the window atm, but definitely hitting that inversion at about 7km.

[Richary]

Having seen a few cells develop around lunchtime I headed up in the general direction of Windsor to see if I could spot something. But things fell apart fairly quickly though some areas had seen some decent showers. I too spotted the cell near Wyong on the radar while I was out.

Now there is a large cell that has formed between Parramatta and Bankstown. I just went out over the hill to see if it had anything worth photoing but apart from a heavy rain core there was no structure to see. Some rumbles but on the radar track it is weakening and veering off to the west of my location. The 5pm radar image shows a nice intense red core for one pciture.