Notable Weather Events Page 29

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10-01-07 Mt Bold Fires and Extreme fire danger day.

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It was forecast to be a shocker of a day. An approaching dry front promised strong winds and very hot +40 degree temps in a NW airstream. With such conditions it was not surprising that total fire bans were issued across the state. The winds did indeed blow and temps did rise. Adelaide made a top 40.2 C at 15:34 and here int he hills we climbed to a rare 35 degrees. Winds were shocking ahead of the front gusting in excess of 60-70km/h and even stronger in exposed areas. Late afternoon came, the cool wind change with the front was only an hour away and it looked like we had avoided fires. Then at 6:30pm, the phone rang. I ran outside and "Oh shit!" A column of smoke was pluming upwards at what looked to be at the bottom of our gully! A better look and the fire was 10km away above Kangarilla and in the middle of a heavily forested area. The NW winds were savage. Truly viscious and very very strong and gusty and hot and blowing right overhead of our place from the fire just 10-12km away. My worse fears were ignited (bad pun) when in the savage NW winds a flare up about 1km from my place smoked into life! The expleteive burst forth again! This was not good as smoke plumed upwards. Inside of 5 minutes of this nearby flare up was being bombd by water bombers and CFS appliances were in attendance. Fortunately this threat was contained. In the meantime the SW wind change had arrived. The good part of this was that the wind speed dropped, the fires turned away from heading my way and temps dropped. The bad was that the fire turned into heavy scrub around Mt Bold. It exploded! The fire burnt all night leaving a blood red glow on my northern horizon. Cooler temps and higher DP's and humidity helped firefighters enormously overnight allowing a small semblance of control by morning. "small". The night time view from my place was amazing and scary.

24 hours later it was still burning although officially contained. It is perhaps best sumamrised by this CFS announcement thursday evening.

8:00 PM 11 January 2007
Firefighters from the SA Country Fire Service, Metropolitan Fire Service, Forestry SA and Department for Environment and Heritage have just contained the fire burning at Mount Bold, in the Kangarilla and Echunga area in the Adelaide Hills.
The fire burnt around 2 000 hectares since it was reported to CFS just after 6:30pm on Wednesday 10 January.
Up to 400 firefighters, more than 80 appliances, water bombers and observation aircraft attended to the fire.
The fire burnt through a mix of scrub, plantation, grass and forest with some areas proving difficult for fire fighters to access.
Appropriate fire fighting strategies were developed to meet changing circumstances, such as wind change and crews attended to occasional outbreaks and flare-ups.
Crews established control lines along the fire perimeter and then concentrated on areas of concern.
Volunteers will remain on scene monitoring and attending to hot spots until the scene is considered safe.
One structure has been confirmed as destroyed, a historic unoccupied building known as Yaroona, on Saddlebags Road. No further losses have been confirmed, and 2 minor injuries were reported.
Community meetings were held earlier today at Echunga and Kangarilla and some 600 members of the community attended.
Once again the CFS have been well supported by other emergency services and voluntary support groups, as well as private farm firefighting units.

Control of the fire and complete mopping up of the situation was paramount as temps into the 40's with strong hot winds were on the forecast in just 5 days time. No rest at all and we in the hills will all be on high alert as the shocking summer rolls on.

Above: Synoptic Chart of the afternoon.

Above: High res satellite image clearly showing the smoke plume.

Some of the imagery captured from the fires was amazing. I also captured some pics from my point of view as the event unfolded. Click on the image below or HERE to view the gallery.

18-01-07 - 21-01-07 HUGE rains and monsoonal low.

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A monsoonal low drenches South Australia with amazing rainfalls. Read the report HERE

21-01-07 Coldest January Day.

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An interesting local record was set on Sunday 21st January when under the influence a cold southerly stream we only made a daytime temp max of 14.4 degrees. This was (to this date) the coldest January max yet recorded at this location. The previous was 15 degrees on the 1st Jan 2003.

26-01-07 Monsoonal Rains Update - desert lakes filling.

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The monsoonal low that drenched central Australia (see report here) with huge rains is having a "flow on" effect. Our Central South Australian Desert Lakes are receiving significant inflow from their surrounding catchments. The image to the right shows (In a false 721 colour that highlights water as a dark blue or black) the lakes before (LH top) and after(RH top) the heavy rains. The difference is marked and obvious. The 2 crops below the main images show more detail. The left hand crop in particular of Lake Gairdner displays the amazing pattern of moisture inflow into the salt lake. The right hand crop of of Lake Torrens shows the extent of the inflow. Click on the image or here for a larger version of the pic. Images sourced from http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and compiled by hillsrain.

04-02-07 Hottest day in 3 years!

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Feb 2007 burst on the scene with heat. The 1st made 31.1, 2nd - 34.4, 3rd 34.8 and then on the 4th we sweltered in a maximum temp of 37.9 degrees! Amazingly this was the hottest temperature recorded at this location for nearly 3 years. The 14th Feb 2004 was a smidge hotter at 39.1. My record for this location is 40.1 degrees on 25/01/03. It is rare to reach 35 here. However not everybody sweltered. On the south coast a weak seabreeze kept temperatures down to the mid twenties. This did not penetrate much more than 10-15 km inland however. On the Adelaide plains this was also notable where the Kent town site made a top of 41.2 degrees while the airport it hovered in the mid thirties.

The temp graph from my WX is interesting. The white line represents the air temperature (in a stevenson screen) from its overnight cool through the day to the evening cool. The green line is a sensor in direct sunlight and shows the affect of being exposed to direct sun radiation which does not represent actual air temp. But its the yellow line which is inside temp and shows clearly the switchuing on of the air conditioner in the morning and off in the afternoon when we left the house and back on again in the late evening. Quite a luxury is an air conditioner! Such temps are rare here though and it is uncommon to need the air con switched on at all.

15-02-07 Unusual Rain Cell!

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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........ More HERE in the report with pics.

19-02-07 Storms and satellite explosion

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Storms are one thing, and this little event certainly delivered that. Some beautiful lightning strikes were on the menu for the evening.
But what will set this evening aside from all the others for a very very long time was being witness to the explosion of a Russian Breeze M rocket body in the skies above me.

Read more about the storms HERE Read more about the satellite explosion HERE

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