Feb 15th to 18th unsettled weather

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Thursday the 15th

Feb has been a very very dull month. High temps were the norm and it was dry and uneventful. However as we approached the 15th convection and thunderstorms developed daily along the eastern border and into the Flinders and Mid North districts. Flash flooding warnings were issued by the BOM as near stationary cells dumped intense rain over extremely localised areas. Unoffical reports of up to 75mm were reported from the Hawker area. Late in the afternoon of the 15th (thursday) this convection moved into the Mt Lofty's and the rarest of rain cells centred JUST over the Meadows township (the rest of the ranges were clear and rain free) on dusk was the result. Such convective showers are extremely unusual for this part of the ranges, a similar but more intense cell last occurred on the 16th Oct 2005 and shows just how unusual such events here are.

 

Left - Sat image of the isolated cell

Left - Radar Loop of the cell birth and death

A final rain total of just 0.6mm was recorded from my location with not enough rain to cover the ground. However less than a kilometre away Meadows Township was drenched in a tropical downpour that delivered between 6-8mm depending on location. Gutters in the town quickly filled and small rivers flowed down the roads. It was heavy enough to bring all the punters out of the pub, beers in hand, to stand and watch the Queensland like deluge. The rain cut off was as sharp as a razor blade. As usual I missed out on the decent downpour. Another 18 months before my next chance perhaps? Check out the video below captured By Service Station Owner Scott Crowden in the town centre.

 

Left - Mobile Phone Video captured in Meadows Town at the height of the Downpour. Click to start in anew window (requires Quicktime) Courtesy Scott Crowden.

Left - The early stages of the Meadows cell as observed from Coromandel Valley.

Friday the 16th

The 16th dawned hot and unstable. Nothing locally fired up, BUT just east of the ranges it expoded in a line of convective cells with torrential rain cores. A small snippet of the radar is to the right. Right - snippet of radar showing heavy cells near the river on the afternoon of the 16th The 16th was also a stinker of a day making 33.7 at my place in the southern ranges and 38.7 at Kent Town, Adelaide.

Saturday the 17th

The 17th also started hot. In the hills it made 30 by 10am while in the city it was already 35.4. Winds were non-existant and just before luch the first puffs of convective activity began to pop up. This thickened quite rapidly and moved east to be centred just on the easter flank of the southern ranges. Mid afternoon and up they went with gusto. Centering initially over Woodchester near Strathalbyn the first rain cores were small and tight but grew as the cells thickened and spread out. See the radar and Sat loops below.

I parked myself under the western edge of the cell just out of Strath. It was an "instability spot" constantly back building with waves of heavy rain to nothing to heavy rain. As such it was also the spot where the lightning was. A strike hit just a few hundred metres down the road and it was entirely too unpredictable to stand outside. So a coward I am [Wink] LOL. I did stand in the rain for a bit and yep, you guessed it as soon as I stood outside "CRACK!" So back in the ute again. The rain was beatiful, smell on the hot ground was unreal and the outflow winds almost cool, but laced with humidity and that smell that only comes from summer rain.
I followed it around and took in the view mostly. It was not super dynamic, not super deluge rain footed, just a very pleasant little cell with some over friendly bolts.

Right - Radar loop of the Woodchester Cell Middle - high res modis Aqua sat pic Far right - Sat loop of the Woodchester cell

I snapped some pics of the cells as they progressed which can be seen in this gallery HERE

The end of the day saw some nasty temps. Up in the hills it rose to a rare 37.2 degrees which is our 3rd day ina row above 30. It was even hotter in the city which sweltered under a maximum of 41 degrees. Night time was pretty savage also and at midnight we were still an amazing 29 degrees. While not a night time record for me it is within a degree. Adelaide was even worse with 33.5 degrees at midnight which is also within a degree of its febuary night record. Quite a day of ups and downs.

Sunday the 18th

The 18th was a day for wilting. A nasty hot wind sprung up overnight that scorched the ground of any moisture that was left. The trees all curled up their leaves and the lawn went yellow. Gusts in excess of 60km/hour caused some vegetation problems that won't be fully recovered from till the next decent rain. Something which is was not to be seen on any immediate forecast. Storms and light rain moved over Eyre Peninsula dn Kangaroo Island overnight, but a strong high pressure ridge kept that away from the central districts for most of the day. The damage is done.

The arrival of the front saw the windspeed drop immediately. Temperatures dropped and the relative humidity increased making life much more pleasant. It did however make 33.1 before the cool break arrived which made 4 days straight above 33 degrees. Extremely unusual. Right - Graph of the windspeed showing the sudden arrival and departure of the savage and hot NW winds. No rain fell locally with the "front". A few spits were all that was to be had. However east of the ranges it again exploded in a flurry of torrential downpours.

This time a bit further north than the previous day the radar was very impressive as can be seen from the image to the right. Right - impressive rain cell east of the ranges in the late afternoon of the 18th. That was the end of this little run of action. 4 days of heat and instability, sporadic rain and a few bolts of lightning.

PICS..

Naturally I did snap some images. These can be seen in THIS GALLERY. A sample...