Notable Weather Events Page 36

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27-29 November 2007 - Riverland storms

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This is not strictly a local event and as such will not go into a detailed report. It does however deserve a mention due to the amazing intensity and severity of the storms. The highs had positioned themselves just south of Tasmania leaving the development of inland troughs through Eastern SA and the western regions of Victoria and NSW. Moisture infeeds from the east kept feeding these troughs and some pretty impressive storms were the result.

First beauty was on the 27th. Caught in an upper low circulation/convergence (see GFS map below left) it was near stationary and intense.

Above - Animation of Riverland Stationary Storm Left - GFS plot showing upper circulation and convergence holding the storm stationary.

Next was on the 29th when the mid north, mallee and Riverland "went off!" Just a selection of radar loops, too much was happening to show everthing.

Florieton Severe Cell

Burra Explosion

The outflow from the storms hit the strong southerly seabreeze and gave birth to even more storms backbuilding to this line continuously which can be clearly seen towards the end of the Florieton animation.
Some images from the evening of the 29th from my southern viewpount can be seen in THIS GALLERY.

Meanwhile down south we were under the influence of the strong southerly stream which pushed any chance of storm activity away. BUT - it left us in an amazing situation of cool mid 20's daytime temps and nightly fogs. Each night the fog would roll in - often pea soup thick, dripping water from tree canopies to make puddles by the morning. The satellite image below shows the amazing climate separating the Southern Coasts and Ranges from further north, In the zoomed inset convective activity in hot air can be seen over the city region while just a few kms away cool air and low cloud dominates.

06-12-07 Dry lightning and KI Storms

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A weak change on the 6th bought the worse forecast. Hot, gale force northerlies, no rain and electrical activity. The end of the season has also left us with ample grass that was pushed into growing overdrive with the early november freak week of rain that then went dry in a rush. Mother natures revenge? In other words a bushfire nightmare far far too early in the season.
Unfortunately the worse fears were realised.
Strikes ignited blazes on Southern Yorke Peninsula near Warooka, O'Halloran Hill near the city and southern suburbs and worse of all - Kangaroo Island. Tragically a life was lost amongst all the property loss. Too much happened to report all here in this predominantly weather site and besides the media is chokas full of information. Some links Adelaide Now, photo gallery, SA's arrogant know it all politican, CFS site. A quick web search will bring many more articles.

Of interest is the modis satellite image of KI from the 8th showing a thick acrid plume of smoke trailing from the island.

As of the 8th December approximately 17300 Ha were burnt. A significant percentage of the islands area when you look at the CFS map of the Island and highlighted burnt areas to the 8th. See image to the right. As always political speak about being prepared for fires (which is valid - you HAVE to be prepared!) comes up. However perhaps some of the developments themselves need to be questioned first before applying blame to all residents generally. Greedy developers and councils need a good reaming for seeing money before sense. GGRRRR

Anyway, enough politics from me.......

UPDATE 15-12-07

The fires were finally declared as contained on the evening of the 14th. But not before an incredible near 90,000 hectares (222386 acres!!) was affected by fire. This is 20% of the islands area. The map is to the right. Note how almost ALL of Flinders Chase was burnt. A tradgedy. A few less koalas I suppose. ;-)

19-12-07 Pinnaroo pounded by storms

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A trough line of instability sees severe storms develop from the West Coast to the Riverland to the Mallee and Upper Southeast. the BOM issued an STA, in fact the BOM issued several STA's! And not without good reason as mid afternoon Pinnaroo ont he SA/Vic border was hammered by a severe storm that uprooted trees and devastated homes and property! The radar animation of the storms can be seen to the right. Unfortunately the bucklands park radar was out of action so the radar snippets are from the sellicks radar which is much lower resolution. Pics... Site contributor Matt harvey of Geranium captured some images of the damage to the town which can be seen in THIS GALLERY. A sample is below.

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