Flooding, lightning and Heavy Rains 07-11-05 to 10-11-05 page 2

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But it was not over. Monday afternoon (7th) a line of cells developing along a convergance line moved in from the NW and proceeded to hammer a thin line across the northern suburbs and into the hills.

It held this narrow line for a good couple of hours with torrential downpours hitting those in the way. Highest official recording from this was 18mm at Cherryville. Left: Radar snippet from early Monday afternoon showing the line of cells to hit the northern burbs. Frustratingly nothing at all fell at home! At about 3:00pm though a band of rain from an arm of the wraparound from the low thickened in the gulf and slowly pushed through. The falls were quite solid without being torrential. Yet again though (as earlier in the day) they were mostly concentrated in a small area. This time it was the central Mt Lofty ranges encompassing the higher peaks around Mt Lofty itself. (see image below)   Below : Radar image showing the tightness of the rain band that deluged for most of the night. Falls outside of this were average to light.

Left: Sat image of the wraparound.

Rain totals continued to accumulate during the night at a rate of approximately 10mm per hour. Soils were already saturated from high october falls in this area and the problems began. Dry Creek in the north broke its banks. At 9pm the BOM issued a flood warning.

Soon after a warning for the torrens catchment was also issued as the skies continued to dump.

And yet again another warning for Brownhill Creek was issued!! It was certainly going to be a busy night for emergency services with sandbagging already taking place in Kangarilla, plus flooding in the Aldgate creek and Summertown, Stirling areas and many other hills and suburb areas!! Possible evacuations were to take place in waterfall gully where rising floodwaters had washed the road away seriously threatening houses. meanwhile it was drizzling lightly at my location with nothing more exciting than a fog. So tight were the streams.

But the worse was yet to come with yet another warning issued by the BOM!

The Floods

Still the rains came and in the early hours of the morning of the 8th of November a media release was issued...

The rain finally eased and by the morning the statistics began rolling in. The rain totals were impressive indeed. The highest oficial 24 hour recording was 118.2mm at Uraidla which is the highest November 24 hour rainfall ever recorded in 116 years of collecting data at this site!! Many other locations across this part of the ranges recorded over the magic 100mm mark. I recorded 43mm to 9am and with the 23mm the previous day, 66mm in total and barely half what Uraidla had in less than a day!

On the plains the highest official total was 50mm at Hope Valley. The falls dropped away quickly towards the coast where only 23mm fell at the airport. Victor Harbour had only 10mm while the normally wet Parawa also missed out with only 26mm. The really big falls were not as widespread as the press makes out, but when the city is affected so is the rest of the state - apparently.

Records broken that night are as follows. (previous record and years of computerised record shown in brackets):
Highest daily rainfall for November
South Australia:
ADELAIDE (KENT TOWN) 43.2 (30.8, 29)
BRIDGEWATER 79.2 (74.2, 130)
GUMERACHA 83.4 (53.3, 137)
LOBETHAL 84.4 (80.8, 122)
CUDLEE CREEK (MILBROOK) 78.0 (54.6, 92)
URAIDLA 118.2 (78.5, 116)
LENSWOOD RESEARCH CENTRE 107.0 (40.6, 37)
data courtesy Laurier Williams Australian Weather News.

The rain map is amazing and not one that we will see too often at any time of the year let alone november!!!!

The weekly Rainfall Bulletin for the 7 Days to 9 AM Friday 11 November 2005 is incredible.

With the rains over the stories started rolling in. There are far too many to list here but one stand out funny tale deserves a mention. On the Torrens the christmas display at the brewery was washed away and to the amusement of all but brewery management the whale from the set was seen floating down the river! Free Willy!!!...

The biggest problem though lay with the Gawler river that broke its banks. Many houses suffered severe water damage and millions of dollars of horticultural crops were lost under the water. Cereal farmers on the northern plains also suffered hay losses from the rains and waterlogging in soil profiles caused root damage significantly reducing yields and in some cases ruining crops completely.

It was an incredible few days that folowed hot on the heels of an incredible month. Where will it end I wonder!

Photos

Some of the pictures I captured can be seen below. The Clarendon weir was a roaring torrent and rarely have I seen it flowing so hard. Images of that and many others can be seen in the album linked below.

I must also thank Chris Henschke, Peter Doumouras, Richard Modistach and other un-named persons for contributing flood images to this album.

IMAGES FROM THE EVENT

The weatherzone forum is well worth the read.