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2nd November 2008 Storms

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Its only been a year. Surely a year between storms is okay? ARE you KIDDING! The crazy boring weather drought of the last 12 months broke on the 2nd November, but only just. It had been trying to get through to us as lightning show after show treated the far west coast. But all died as it arrived close to the central districts. It would die so often that it was as if a force field has been erected along Yorkes Peninsula.

This event though "seemed" different. Although the synoptic as seen to the right did not really hint at all that much. But complex it was and complex the system turned out to be. Lets just quickly go back a few days to the 29th when all this really started. I had spent the afternoon baling hay trying my best to beat an oncoming warm front, the rarest of beasts in this part of the land. It was a speccy evening too. Sunset flashes are the best of scenes and with a warm wet smelling wind the atmosphere was amazing! Just too busy working to snap any shots unfortunately. By the time I had finished just a few distant bolts remained. I did get 2 shots which after a 12 month storm drought was like winning the lottery! Now back to the 2nd and the action. Some HUGE thunderstorms developed in the northern no mans land districts and were incredibly lightning active. By 10pm it had spread south and I could see distant flashes from my hilltop. Looked bad for me getting any sleep.

I watched and waited for most of the night with strikes coming tantalisingly close but always sliding away or dying on approach. This continued all night! The show was speccy, just out of reach of the longest lenses and often obscured by low cloud. At 5am I gave up and went to bed. Half a dozen lame shots, but nice eye candy for storm deprived eyes.

The radar was at times mightily impressive. Pity it just kept sliding south. There where some whopping big thunderstorms in the states north as well. See radar images to the right. An hour after retiring for a short sleep I was awoken - by the sound of torrential rain that turned to pea sized hail!! WHAT! A look at the radar showed the gulfs had exploded! See Below.

The BOM issued a Severe thunderstorm warning and the aviation forecast mentioned local hail with the thunderstorms.
I raced back to the hill after my short hour of "rest" to be greeted by an awesome black and lightning active line approaching
from the sea. It was beautiful with a hail green front. So rarely seen in this part of the world. Not to emtion lots of lightning. I set up the camera inside the back of the ute for cover. It was spectacular on approach. Lightning came uncomfortably close on numerous occasions. The closest just a KM or 2 away that had cows sprinting instinctively for low ground. Annoyingly I was depressing the camera shutter as the closest bolt struck. It would have hit centre frame too had I been 1/10 second
quicker! A one in a million capture. Pity I missed it!

It hit with a bang and more pea sized hail and lots of those bolts of lightning. By the time this passed I had numerous daytime lightning shots, some awesome skyscapes, torrential rain (7 very quick mm) and strong wind.

The day was over for us, but the mid north and Mallee just "went off". Incredibly powerful storms bubbled upwards in the unstable air delivering rain, hail and lightning action for many. These storms were truly ipressive (see radar grab to the right) making my few minuites of ecitement absolutely pathetic as the northern stuff always does. Many falls at or over the inch and lots of puddles for most in these districts. These were the true gems of the day, pity I had other commitments and could not go after them. Then there was the issue of sleep depravation.... The lightning stats for the event were impressive indeed with 44623 strikes reported by GPATS! My few pics from the event can be seen in THIS GALLERY. What a few days, about time too! Its only been a year after all........

7th November 2008 Storms!

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Ah a decent light show. An almost all nighter and slow to arrive, but when it did it was "sweeeet". Not going into a detailed report on the dynamics of the system, no this is a visual only report. Savour the memories of a year long wait. The gallery of images is HERE - in the meantime, a sample......

Brisbane stormse

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This is hardly local. But its so significant it deserves a mention. Starting Sunday the 16th November a week of serious instability gave birth to some massive Storms that hammered SE Queensland and Brisbane. Hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to property, flooding, hail, torrential rain, lightning strikes, gust fronts you name it it likely happened. The news services went mad with reports and this is not the place for me to elaborate on details, they are out there enough already. Perhaps just a few radar grabs is enough to tell a story.

22nd November 2008 spring update

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On this date, the 22nd november a "mini" outbreak of cold enters the forecast. This event in itself is not really significant but it promises a small amount of rain, possible the biggest 24 hour fall for my location in 3 months It only needed 10mm to make this "huge fall". A sad indicment on the season. With this in mind its worth taking a quick look at the 2008 spring season to date.

Spring thus far (to the 21st november) for me has netted just 76mm. The average is 222 for spring. A MASSIVE shortfall.
Historically this is the LOWEST spring rainfall on record thus far. The next lowest is 87mm in 1967, then 93mm back in 1982.
For interest sake the highest spring rainfall was almost 400mm in 1917!

The "mini" cold pool on the overnight to the 22nd netted just 7.25mm. Will the lowest ever spring rainfalls in 120+ years eventuate. As I write this it does! Still 139mm in deficit.

Look for an update at the end of november.

Spring rainfall update

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November has officially finished so we can set the history books now in stone. Spring 2008 netted my spot in the SE Ranges a mere 91mm (with 698mm for the year to date). The spring average (as mentioned above) is 222mm leaving a HUGE 131mm shortfall. This is 5 and a quarter inches on the old scale!

So this makes 2008 my districts 2nd lowest lowest spring rainfall.
Driest spring in the datatset for Meadows 87mm in 1967 annual for that year 453.5
next is 93.7mm in 1982. Dataset is incomplete for this year it was at 470 for the year but 2 months are missing (one in winter) so is not representative annually. Next is 109mm in 1914 with 535mm for that year followed by 109mm also in 1938 with 787mm for that years total.
Meadows has only recorded less than 500mm once and that was 1967 again, next lowest is 504 in 1959. 1959 had 142mm that spring.

Spring 2008 was certainly a shocker!

Not all of Australia was so dry for november. in fact just about the most of the rest of the continent was doing pretty well. The map to the right for november 2008 does not show rainfall totals, rather it shows the rainfall recorded as relative to the long term average. An interesting turn around for the eastern states and a wet month for central and South Western Australia. The SE of SA and Western Victoria continues to suffer with no break in drought conditions.

End of year events wrapup

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I have been a little slack I must confess. A very busy lead up to the christmas period of 2008 has seen me without time to write up the few events of the final weeks. So I shall cheat a little and use the "hillsrain updates" that site subscribers will know so well to summarise the end of 2008. Here goes.......

Posted the 9th December 2008.
This morning (tuesday) saw a nice heavy little band of rain move through Adelaides northern suburbs. It peaked in the birdwood locality with up to 19mm in some spots! The rain fell here in an intensity not seen in my location for at least 2 years!
The distribution is not a random event and such falls will happen in these disticts with reasonable regularity. However over an annual perspective the southern areas get more rain, it just falls more often and much lighter with such falls on the more "extreme" end somewhat rare.

This distribution of extreme falls vs lighter falls certainly occurs in other parts of Australia and has been very well described by BOM meteorologist Blair Trewin in a weatherzone thread which can be viewed here -
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=007230#000000

To quote Blair
"One subtlety of the Otway's effect which gets alluded to here is that, while the SW slopes which are more exposed to the prevailing winds have the highest mean rainfall, the highest extremes occur on the SE side because of the higher moisture content of SE airstreams (which can originate over the relatively warm waters of the Tasman Sea). I don't have the exact figures to hand (I'm away from the office this week); however, Tanybryn's annual mean rainfall is substantially lower than Weeaproinah's (mid-1000s compared with almost 2000, I think), but it gets much higher extremes (about 3x the frequency of 100+ mm days, and a record daily high which is about double Weeaproinah's)."

Its fascinating and the same effect certainly affects our own ranges. Rather a pity I happen to live in the drizzle zone. I have to say some decent heavy rain would be nice sometimes.

Posted the 15th December 2008
Well there is much to say. I will try to condense it somewhat.
Firstly - well what a rain! I know I am a bit slow on this but it needed to finish to summarise!
An awesome tropical infeed and broad trough all came together as it needed to and rain fell in buckets across most of the state.

The rainfall bulletin for the week is almost queensland like.

A few of the outstanding falls.
Marla - 119mm
Mintabie - 125mm
Melrose - 100mm
Wilmington 86mm
Karoonda - 49mm
Blyth - 82mm
Farrell Flat - 92mm
Pt Pirie - 109mm
Watervale - 105mm
Kalangadoo - 86mm
Nangwarry - 102mm

And the list goes on. Read the weekly rainlist its well worth it.
Noticeably absent from the significant rainfall list was again the SE ranges with falls in the low 30's the general norm. While a nice drop and in the top 3 falls of the year it was pretty average when taken in context with the system. This tounge in cheek radar image grabbed at one stage tells the story.
http://www.hillsrain.com/TEMP/WZ/web.gif

The southeast also did extremely well with falls at and over the 100mm mark recorded.

Some may have heard that Strathalbyn had falls into the 80mm mark. I believe this to be false and I cannot believe that the BOM have not updated this fall. Not only does it still figure on their weekly and daily rain bulletins it was mentioned by the BOM themselves in ABC radio. Looking at all the nearby stations really dispels the figure. I received an email from one of my website rainfall collectors in Strathalbyn (thanks Peter Stewart) saying that he had 26mm to 6:30 am saturday morning. Also collectors at Woodchester and near Wistow who also reported very similar falls.

So take this with a pinch of salt!

The rain was really a double edged sword. Agriculturally it was not really welcome where the croppers are concerned. It doesn't rain all year, the crops were wilting through a lack of water! Then when they are trying to reap the meagre yields it not only rains, it buckets in a way not seen for years! Not funny.

For our gardens it was a godsend! I don't think I have ever seen tomatoes grow so much so quick! Nothing like natural water from the sky.

Posted the 17th December 2008.
You are all going to get sick of me. I will try NOT to be too long winded, but much has happened you see and I have this terrible habit of dribbling on when mother nature is putting it on.
So where to start.

Early this morning a line of electrically active storms that were so very NOT forecast moved through the mid north. Lots of lightning and some torrential rain with a quickfire almost 20mm through the Truro area.
Down south nothing at all. BUT I thought I heard rain during the night, a few drops on the roof, but had thought I was dreaming! Woke up, went outside in the morning and nothing on the ground or on the lawn so filed away that "dream". However on radar archive examination it sure did rain down my way - about eleventeen spots, just enough to wake me.

Then as the day rolled on the inherent instability in the atmosphere became rather obvious. I was working at Middleton on the south coast and watched as a speccy looking thunderstorm cell moved south of the coastline. Then my phone beeps with a picture message from my wife showing torrential rain falling at home! I run to look northwards and sure enough a line of storm towers hugs the ranges.

On arriving home and checking the radar my jaw dropped. A line of severe thunderstorm cells were moving at a rocket pace south of
Karoonda and heading SE inland. These showed black cores on the doppler radar which is as heavy as can be recorded. This usually indicates hail! I could see the storm tops from my high ranges viewpoint but they did not look high or blown out to anvils. These were low and severly intense storms.

I taped up my jaw which would not stop drooping and rang my mate Matt in the mallee. Well his story reads like this...

"I had to pull over cause the rain was so heavy I could not see the
road in front of me" Matt says. Anyone who knows Matt, well he
doesn't stop, so that boggles me!!
Also LOTS of hail, looks like snow in the scrub he tells me. In
places the hail is so intense it has stripped the leaves from the
mallee trees!!
Also RIVERS of water roaring in from the paddocks to cross the road
and railway in rapids!
"Out with the canoes and a carton lads. Here's some fun!"

Matt copped the point of convergence from the Lameroo highway cell and northern cells. The southern right mover thunderstorm on the highway won the battle and sucked the others completely into itself going ballistic as it did so from the energy output.

Matt reports 19mm in just 10 minutes. Can you imaging that? Tropical!

More reports from near Karoonda where the storm was even more intense speak of 35mm with hail wiping out crops and fences with trenches in paddocks a meter deep.

The croppers cannot take a trick this year. I know it reads like an awesome movie set, but this is heartbreaking for those trying to reap grain.

Matt has some amazing images of hail and the subsequent fog from the hail melt. Its best to read his report with the promised pics on the weatherzone thread which starts here -
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=002602;p=6
Matts pics can be seen individually in this album on my gallery -
http://weather.saint.net.au/thumbnails.php?album=81

The day finished off for me with a thick pea soup fog rolling up from the south. It descended like a blanket of silence over the
landscape and all that could be heard on walking outside was the sound of crickets and frogs. An awesome ending to an awesome day.

Now for some pics from me. I have put up a quick gallery of my days viewings which can be seen here -
http://www.hillsrain.com/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=68

A sample...

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