Topic: NSW & QLD Storms: 13 - 15 October 2008

[Shaun Galman]

Upper Western NSW 14th October. 2008. Photos.

Looking NE at the edge of the anvil building on the main storm at 3:15pm. There was a little mamatus here and there, though looking at the slightly diffuse edge you'd never imagine it would prove to be such a nice event? I'm constantly surprised at how different scenario's can be during severe weather


Here's a panorama of the ensuing beast. This is looking West from town. The green tinge really started to become apparent after this time. I'm still kicking myself for not grabbing my tripod?


Really staring to fire up at this point, now 3:30pm. CG were starting to reach the close 'dangerous' range here!


Russ arrives (with Susan, his significant other) only to realize he has forgot to put the card in his camera DOH! At least he had his tripod though lol.


Here's where I was really taken back by the greenish colouring to this beast. It's been some time since I have seen this! (I think Jan. 2006 was the last time a storm took on a green-ish hue) The CG were really began to pick up pace at this time and the rain curtain was looming. A nice little notch cutting in on the NW side of the front here also.


My only, and extremely blurred CG. They were pretty much everywhere, so even with tripod in hand I would imagine it may have been hard to catch one due to the extent of the front? We made haste back into town for cover not long after this shot as the rain was about to become very torrential!


I couldn't do much in the way of photography after this as the rain was just nuts and each of the next 4cells that formed and hit after this was about the same- torrential downpours and numerous cannoning CG. All in all an awesome experience I'd say :D
32mm all up. Doesn't sound much, but did it come down fast! We thought it was in the range of 1mm per minute given the storms were clocking a fair pace. Nice to see some pea sized hail also. I attempted to photograph it along side my ruler to give you all bit of a laugh, but it melted in my hand before I could adjust my camera exposure lol!

Cheers and take care,
Shauno

[Richary]

Thanks Shauno

I remember years ago before I got into storm photography watching two storms collide at Gosford. Commented to the (now ex) wife that we didn't have to worry too much unless it went green.

10 minutes later we had a huge green colour in the sky and the storm heading for us. A long time ago but I remember fairly heavy hail up to maybe 1.5cm, with lots of wind and rain. So yes the green colour is a nice warning (and also been a long time since I have seen it).

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

It was a very tiring day at least 12 hours of driving time and in some heavy rainfall with hydroplaning. But it was fun and at least something happened in the area.

The target was the western Upper Hunter with the option of jumping over the range north of Merriwa. After consulting with Michael, it was obvious this was the only action. It was a mad rush to Gunnedah via Willow Tree. When I got there it seemed like the atmosphere in the lower layers had cooled off and I was concerned the storm would have lost some of its intensity. Michael assured me it was still pushing along. The first decent pictures were shot 15km west of Gunnedah. The shelf cloud was quite spectacular and with good contrast.

I headed east with the cell and it seemed I was able to keep up. I sampled the core just south of Gunnedah and I could not find any hail. Heading back east, the storm had raced east and was difficult to catch despite the short time I had ventured south. It was about 20km east of Gunnedah before 1 to 1.5cm hailstones began to fall amongst some very heavy rainfall. After an attempted call from David Croan and then Nick Moir, the storm structure began to emerge from the rain. Hailstones began to fall frequently and this time up to 3cm or slightly larger. It seemed like a circulation had developed given the winds were NW at one point quickly turning SW within the core. Inflow was streaming from the ESE. Lightning was once again become more frequent. In all this intensity, I had missed both required turn offs (well the roads may not have been safe to go on given the flash flooding. At this point I raced east towards Tamworth but the storm was getting away. Once out of the core, I stopped to check out the structure. There was a microburst to the north and bases racing northeast. I could then hear a noise which was the wind and likely hail roar. I filmed it until the first hailstones hit and then filmed hailstones to golf ball size pound the vehicle and bouncing off the grass. The winds were quite strong and the hail stripped the leaves off trees.

The next attempt was to intercept the next storm coming from Coonabarabran. Unfortunately, the storm had merged with weaker activity and weakened. So the next best thing was to timelapse and photograph the shelf and then head home.

I arrived home at just past 10:30pm after leaving just before 9pm.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jimmy Deguara]

The second storm pictures taken on the 14th October 2008 (west of Manila):








All photos for the day are available here


Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Bath]

Thanks for your descriptions and photos Shauno and Jimmy !  Nothing much made it here (as expected). Just some dull lightning to the SW and some showers late evening.

Here's the radar loop for the afternoon - quite a few cells showed strong reflectivities (for Moree radar) despite being a long way from its location.

---> Moree 256km loop

[Shaun Galman]

G'day,

Thanks for the kind words guys!
We had a lucky break last night at 10:10pm with a small (only on or two pixels in width on the radar) but growing in activity. It was sitting 20-25k's to our NW but heading towards our NE. There were some heavy lower level cumulus that played to our favour for a few shots but as this storm blew up it to a massive dome (not quite making the troposphere) it became highly active, particularly at the top of the updraft dome. The lower level cloud stopped our view for the bulk of the time, but every now and then we'd get an amazing view of it! There was a fairly bright moon poking through now and again, this added nicely to the atmosphere of the nights photographs. The lightning activity was behaving quite erratically. It would be quiet for a few minutes then we'd get a real nice flurry of 4 or 5 CG. All shots here are 20, 15 and 13seconds. f/6.3 to f/8 and ISO-800 for the first then dropped it down for the others to ISO-200.





I think this last photo best shows the activity high in the updraft. Taken near to 11pm, this is at 18mm so we were pretty much looking straight up to see this amazing sight each time we had a small clearing in the lower level clouds. It made it's way out towards Collarenebri soon after so we called it a night

Cheers,
Shauno

[Michael Bath]

Nice bonus last night there Shauno! 

Should be some storms - some severe - over a large part of SE QLD this afternoon. The Brisbane sounding is quite nice though the S'ly has reached there now.


This story from the ABC:


Storm wreaks havoc in Kingston district

Wednesday October 15, 2008 - 13:25 EDT

Property owners are inspecting damage caused by a vicious storm that swept through the Kingstown district near Uralla in New South Wales.

Matthew Monk of Kingstown Station says hundreds of trees have been blown down, his home has been partially unroofed and other farm buildings have been damaged.

Mr Monk has described it as a mini cyclone.

"Chairs were being blown along the verandahs, doors were blowing in," he said.

"I was driving at the time and got caught in the middle of it ... my car started going sideways.

Electricity has been restored to hundreds of homes that lost power late yesterday in a string of storms that hit the Tamworth, Manilla, Gunnedah and Narrabri districts.

Country Energy's regional manager, Matt Patterson says strong winds brought down branches, and in some cases blew tin from rooves onto power lines causing several blackouts.

Mr Patterson says crews were forced to patrol the streets of Manilla for several hours to locate a number of lines that had come down at the height of the storms.

"We had to then patrol the town to make sure there weren't further problems because we had reports of roofing and branches that had gone into power lines," he said.

"Around the Narrabri and down to Gunnedah in between we had a fair amount of activity."

However, recent regular rain has led the Department of Primary Industries to give an optimistic spring crop forecast for the region.

Most of the falls yesterday fell in the Tamworth district that recorded more than 40 millimetres, Gunnedah had 35 and Narrabri 20.

Moree recorded 11 millimetres, Inverell 12 millimetres and Armidale 15 millimetres.

The Department is predicting that crop levels will be at average or above average because of the rain.

The technical specialist for the northern farming systems John Kneipp says the rainfall could even have benefits in the long term.

"Anything that falls now is more than beneficial, we'll have it all its good," he said.

"It sets us up also for the coming summer crop, crops like sunflowers sorghum maize, cotton.

"They will also benefit from this so we've got to be looking long-term rather than short-term."

[Mel]

If these are incidents of twisters,why are they are always described as a mini cyclone?????Also yes SE is brewing..I can feel it in the air and it is very humid here right now.

[Steven]

Cells firing everywhere now. I'll keep a look out by 4pm in case anything develops locally. I guess that's why the BOM were overly enthusiastic on 'gusty' storms today. :D

[Mike]

Nice images there Shauno - at least you lot are getting decent CG shots!  Plenty of action here also building.  Looks like we're all getting some chasing in for a change.

[Carlos E]

Nasty storm (has the very dangerous box) on the Bris radar now.

[Steven]

Very impressive line moving up from Brissie, but I have a feeling its gonna die before it gets to me. Oh well.

Update - very bright flashes to the S/SW, definitely in for it soon.

[Richary]

The Brisbane storm was certainly spectacular tonight and I had 90 minutes to watch it while sitting on the ground in a 737. We were just about to shut the doors and push back when there was a lightning hit within 5 miles according the captain and they had to clear everyone off the tarmac. So we sat there. Quite a few nice close CGs (I was looking east out of the window) and crawlers. Would have been a great storm to try and get some pictures of, but the inside of a plane isn't the best place to set the camera to time exposure and try photos!

Listening the ABC 7pm news while sitting there they had reported 35mm of rain in 45 minutes at Ipswich and the possibility of flash flooding.

The captain then informed us he has been advised the line of storms was about 50km long and moving at 20 knots (interesting mix of measures). So it took a while to pass. After 90 minutes they could get back on the tarmac but by that stage had to top up the fuel, luckily we were first in line - the following flight to Sydney got cancelled and we only beat the Sydney curfew by 10 minutes. So after a 5am alarm this morning got home at 11:40pm. Been a long day, but hope someone up there got some great photos.

[Michael Bath]

Some weather data for 15th October 2008


--> Brisbane radar loop

VIS at 4.30pm local, just before the severe storm NW of Bris looked most impressive on radar. Nice overshoot.




Sounding with Gatton 4pm obs. There was a big surge in moisture through this area.




And the warning with the "dangerous storm" comment


SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING - SOUTHEAST QUEENSLAND
for DAMAGING WIND and LARGE HAILSTONES

For people in parts of the LOCKYER VALLEY and SOMERSET Council Areas.

Issued at 4:59 pm Wednesday, 15 October 2008.

The Bureau of Meteorology warns that, at 4:55 pm, very dangerous thunderstorms were detected on weather radar near Gatton and the area north of Gatton. These thunderstorms are moving towards the north. Very dangerous thunderstorms are forecast to affect the area southwest of Esk and the area west of Esk by 5:55 pm.

Large hailstones and damaging winds are likely.

[JulianR]

Hi Guys

Impressive day yesterday - BOM were punting on something sev to kickup, yet they withdrew their severe thunderstorm warning! I took around the Beaudesert & Rathdowney areas yesterday & had a nice time watching boiling updrafts pulse up & down ... Some cells were getting organised in the Greenbank area just as I was heading south to Rathdowney, so I caught the tail end of those cells when I made my way back north.

As I headed out to grab some dinner with the wife, we were treated to a promising lightshow that was approaching us from the W/SW (main core of cells moving in from the samford valley area) so dashed back home, quickly gobbled up tea & headed for the clontarf foreshore to grab some lightning shots. Unfortunately by the time we finished dinner & got onto the gateway arterial to head north we were getting shrouded in showers of moderate to heavy rain. Arriving at clontarf I was treated to a facefull of very gusty outflow which was kicking up sand along the shoreline which gave my tripod a nice lovely crunchy coating noise when I was folding it back down at home. Once the line hit, we left & headed back south along the hornibrook viaduct, rain at this stage was nearly at complete whiteout, speeds reduced to no more than about 20km/hr, with flash flooding at the southern end of the bridge. A drive along the esplanade at sandgate/brighton had water gushing over the tops of the barriers & then spewing over the roads. For the rest of the trip home from Brighton back to Clayfield, the lightshow was very forthcoming, intense and quite eye burning, with some extremely close & bright cg's, some of which were only dropping a km or so away from my path. Upon reaching home was treated to a blackened street with no power. I am dissapointed that I opted to take my DSLR instead of my video camera last night, it would have made for some extremely good footage in regards to the severity of the cells .... there is always next time I guess

I have put together a bit of timelapse from just N of Beaudesert which was the cell to the W/SW of Rathdowney which I believe gave some oompf, along with the injection of moisture from the change to the other isolated cells further W