June 2005 Winter Rains Continue

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On it goes. 3 weeks previous it couldn't rain if you wanted it to. What a turnaround. A deep low and approaching cold front combined to bring torrential and sustained rains to most of South Australia's Agricultural districts. The synoptic from the 20th tells the story of what is to come. Its worth noting that the low delivered some amazing pressures. Mt. Gambier dropped to 983hPa!!

The morning of the 20th saw the heavens open with torrential rain giving significant runoff into our dam. 32mm was in the gauge. Click here for the rain distribution map of the 20th. The weather station recorded the duration and intensity of the rain as can be seen from the graph below.

But it was not yet over and the wet stuff continued to fall over most districts from the hills to the plains that copped a hammering from at times torrential downpours. Thie following radar image from the 21st tells some of the story.

The totals from the 21st are staggering. Check out the rain distribution map!

Adelaide broke its previous record highest ever daily rainfall for June of 53.6mm in 1920. The morning of the 21st saw 54.6mm in the Kent Town Gauge. Amazing totals. The Onkaparinga Hills area had hail drifts while the northern suburbs had flooding. This one was a northern event though with it relatively quite down in the Southern Ranges. To 9:00am on the 21st I recorded only 25mm. Incredible variations.

But it still was not yet over. Temperatures plummeted as conditions continued to degenerate during the day of the 21st. Kingscote, a coastal town on Kangaroo Island recorded the amazing temp of 5.3 degrees. Very impressive for a station near sea level! Lightning, hail and thunder roared through many areas bringing strong winds and rapidly dropping temps. Mt Lofty dropepd to near zero giving a real possibility of snow on the ground. Sure enough reports of snow at Crafers and Mt Lofty plus other ranges locations filtered through. Likely it was sleet and hail, but........ snow flurries perhaps?

Rain totals to 9:00am on the 22nd can be seen HERE. During the day on the 22nd, the rains move further east and in a wrap around rain/shower band the eastern flats and mallee got their turn with yet again some amazing totals, especially Mannum and Murray Bridge where well in excess of 25mm fell on these 2 towns. Yet again Murray Bridge suffered flooding as happened during the summer thunderstorms earlier this year.

It was quite a few days for the whole state and capped off what was an amazing few weeks and complete turnaround from the long standing summer dry. The period from the 20th to the 24th gave me 96.25mm, an average of nearly an inch a day for the 4 days. The whole month saw 235.25mm, most of which fell in just a 2week period, including these 4 days.

Some of the pictures I captured from the days can be seen from the link below

IMAGES FROM THE EVENT