Topic: NSW Severe Storms: 31 Oct 2008

[Michael Bath]

Been warnings out most of the day as the activity has spread from central to more northern inland NSW. The latest warnings notes a very strong wind gust at Narrabri:


SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
for DAMAGING WIND
For people in parts of the MID NORTH COAST, NORTHERN TABLELANDS, NORTH WEST SLOPES, NORTH WEST PLAINS and UPPER WESTERN Forecast Districts.


Issued at 5:27 pm Friday, 31 October 2008.


Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce damaging winds in the warning area over the next several hours. Locations which may be affected include Armidale, Tamworth, Gunnedah, Narrabri and Walgett.


111 kph wind gust observed at Narrabri Airport at 5:07pm.

[David Brodrick]

Yep Narrabri Airport has had the highest reported gust of any location in Australia today! Wind was very exciting although we've only seen relatively minor damage with some tree limbs down and one flattened fence. Only received a few drops of rain. We just had to fire up the chainsaw and help a mate down the road with a tree that had fallen over his fence.

Cheers for now,
  Dave

[Richary]

Unluckily any action for Sydney has come to nothing. After a hot day (35 while I was working on a roof most of the day) the wind change came through an hour or so back. Only light cloud with it an no sign of anything happening here after the forecast afternoon storms.

Looking at the soundings there was no shear so even if anything had developed it would have had to be more a squall line. The 2nd southerly buster according to the TV news, I always remember the traditional southerly buster being a bit storm front rolling up from the south. Not just a cooling wind change.

[Ben]

Shear was strong just a bit linear... With the forecast NW'lys it was fairly clear that it was going to be too dry for any storms today, though it looks like northern areas of the state managed even in poor dewpoints. Those winds at Narrabri are impressive. We had a storm roll through here at 2am.. was nice, though couldn't get out for a look unfortunately!

[James]

Managed to be on a flight that landed in Sydney just as the southerly pushed through the city. Talk about a wild ride! Captain told the flighties to buckle up as they were expecting a few bumps.

Coming in over Pennant Hills you could see the moist muggy line pushing north along the coast but lagging inland. At 1000 feet we hit it over Rozelle. The plane suddenly lurched upwards for over 4 seconds or so before dropping sharply for 3 seconds, most likely hitting the first heat pocket rising up above the southerly and dropping over the other side. Happened for another minute before the southerlies were consistant enough to be a smooth landing. The plane engines were going nuts, pilots struggling to gain control.

Good fun and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to feel what a southerly change is like from the air.

[Michael Bath]

James - you can have those sort of plane rides

David - did you see how high the storm bases were ? The Moree sounding shows very nice shear yesterday - pity it did not coincide with a good moisture profile !  The Narrabri Obs suggests winds were over 100km/h for 10 mins - that's pretty impressive.



---> Moree radar loop

[dann weatherhead]

MB - They are extremely impressive obs.. for 10 minutes!!

I had exactly the same exrience coming home from Singapore last year (october 6th). Not only did we catch a jetstream just east of Perth that was something like 300-400km/h ( i wondered if i was on the wrong plane for a second) but we landed right as the SE'sterly was hitting sydney. It was paticularly bumpy coming in over the hills area too!