Vic - Potential showers/storms - 21st Dec to Boxing Day 2011

[aussiestormfreak]

Currently being hit by the second of two after-dark thunderstorms passing through the southern Dandenong Ranges this evening. Not a terrible amount of lightning but pouring rain, which has just eased off.

I have only about 300 pics or 12 minutes of space on my 16GB memory card left... I'm reserving it for lightning as the storms clear off...

[James]

are more likely to pop up in the night?

the thunder was massively scary earlier this evening, noticed a manhole appeared to have been blown up in the middle of the road
near the crossing at boronia rd..maybe lightning did it..?

[Meso]

Nah, that'll be it for tonight I think, James. Trough is too far east now, any new development will be east of whats already going.



NSW should be in for an interesting Boxing Day.

[AUS_Twisted]

Did anyone get to see the great sunset with a CB widening from the SE, looked awesome right above me.

[greensyboy]

Hey All,

Connected with a mutual friend today - he's with the CFA. Was in Melton and got a pic of the Melton Tornado. He's posted it in the Facebook group Victorian Thunderstorms 2011-2012:
http://www.facebook.com/VICTS11.12

Also mentioned I might be interested in doing an interview - get some more details about what happened where he was which he's happy to do.

Nate

[Storm2]

Getting an awesome late night show out here in gippsland lots of cgs and ccs almost constant

[Meso]

Hey All,

Connected with a mutual friend today - he's with the CFA. Was in Melton and got a pic of the Melton Tornado. He's posted it in the Facebook group Victorian Thunderstorms 2011-2012:
http://www.facebook.com/VICTS11.12

Also mentioned I might be interested in doing an interview - get some more details about what happened where he was which he's happy to do.

Nate

Aint nothin 'mini' about that. Good to see a pic finally surface. Beautiful funnel. Wonder if we'll get one of it on the ground.

Edit: Whats going on Greeny? - http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victor ... 5903728133" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Duckey]

Hi everyone!

Wow, just got home about 1/2 an hour ago from a loooong Christmas Day, madly catching up on all the posts and am SO JEALOUS!!!!

Got hardly any sleep last night thanks to sticky humidity and the three or four loooud storms that went through between midnight and 5am.Up at 6, opened pressies (including a Wild Weather calendar from hubby hahaha he must have had a premonition about today!) then headed off to my Sister In Law's place in Eltham North for brekky. A few light rumblies around 11:30am, left at 12:15 and headed over to Mt Evelyn for lunch with the Parentals. Some nice thundery showers going over but nothing to write home about, left at 4pm and headed up to the Aunties place in Menzies Creek. Had a hairy drive around the windy roads in torrential rain and almost constant cg's. Their place backs on to the puffing billy tracks with great views over Cardinia and Western Port Bay (if clear enough) and honestly, we could hear so much thunder and see so much lightning all afternoon but it wasn't over us! It was just to the north, it looked clear out to the south the whole time so NOTHING photo worthy.

And I have to admit, GUILTY about sneaking off to the loo about 5 times and checking the BOM radar on the phone and being SPEWING I wasn't still at the Sis in law's in Eltham North or our place in Croydon North judging by the amount of black cores that went over. Turning down our street coming tonight, the end of the cul-de-sac is flooded (again) and all the cars have towels and sheets all over them so not sure what the hail was like - have to chat to the neighbours in the morning.

But there's 68!!! mm of rain in the gauge. Must have been epic. Sounds like a lot of you had a fantastic chase today, can't wait to see all your pics on top of the ones I have seen already (WOW at the Tornado funnel! WOW! )

Merry Christmas All - Santa delivered a beauty!

[Meso]

It's fake, Duckey. Someone is playing funny buggers. The tornado photo is from Moama earlier this year.

[Lily]

Someone was asking for clarification much earlier on in the thread about a Qantas flight landing at the RAAF base in Gippsland. Can't remember who it was sorry, but just read this:


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-n ... 6230033794" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

About 77 passengers on a flight out of Darwin spent almost four hours at Sale airport after Qantas decided it was unsafe to fly into Melbourne.

[AUS_Twisted]

It's fake, Duckey. Someone is playing funny buggers. The tornado photo is from Moama earlier this year.

It's the main reason why I started to put my name on images, as several of my pics from the Melbourne SC NW of Calder Park ended up on other websites.

[johnno]

by johnno » Sun Dec 25, 2011 11:37 am

Mid level instabilty? Checked
Low level instability convection for later? Checked
Very warm temps? Checked
High moisture level/Humidity? Checked
Northerly wind come through here? Checked
Get a southerly/SW change later converging with the Northerlies? Checked.


Its on like donkey kong!


How did I go folks? Haha... 1 Christmas I will never forget!

[Meso]

You did pretty well, johnno!

Funny too how the sky can look terrible early afternoon or morning or whatever, but it really means nothing. I drove through Melbourne around noon and it was gloomy and certainly didn't have that stormy day feel to it at all. We all know what happened a couple hours later.

[Blackie]

Yes very well done on picking this Johno. 40mm in Elwood with marble hail in rain. Now at Mansfield watching the distant flashes from storms still firing in Sth Gippsland. No rain here at all today.

On the Hume before the Broadford exit I observed large, deep hail drifts from the earlier storms. Quite incredible must have been a whitewash when it fell.

A happy Christmas day.

[Hamlan]

Ok, one pic processed...1050 pics from Sunday to go

Taken on the Hume near Clonbinane looking SE in the evening Sun Dec 25th 2011.

[Australis(Shell3155)]

Okay, the main course seems to be over now for the Melbourne area. I came out from the UK over 6 years ago (after marrying my Aussie wife) expecting to see storms like this on a fairly regular basis, but that it seems is not how it is. Does anyone regard today's extraordinary event to be something of a one-off, possibly the best multiple storm event for some years, it's certainly the best since I've been here!

Geoff, my Dad's (68) comment yesterday "this is like it used to be 20 years ago" loves his weather.
I would say that was one of the best storms I recall of sounds and lights, so happy we didnt cop what I am hearing and seeing on the news.

[heatherjoan]

Thanks for the info on the Qantas flight Lily. The plane flew in quite low over us as it headed to the base - it was a bit of a surprise. My partner works at the base and we knew it was pretty much shut down, so it was something unusual.
Just had a sharp little storm pass over us this morning - lots of big rumbles and a heavy but short lived downpour.
Someone commented that this weather is 'like it was 20 yrs ago' - I concur - Christmas (and hay harvest time) we always had severe storms - that's when I became fascinated with them.

[greensyboy]

Hey All,

Connected with a mutual friend today - he's with the CFA. Was in Melton and got a pic of the Melton Tornado. He's posted it in the Facebook group Victorian Thunderstorms 2011-2012:
http://www.facebook.com/VICTS11.12

Also mentioned I might be interested in doing an interview - get some more details about what happened where he was which he's happy to do.

Nate

Aint nothin 'mini' about that. Good to see a pic finally surface. Beautiful funnel. Wonder if we'll get one of it on the ground.

Edit: Whats going on Greeny? - http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victor ... 5903728133" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hey Meso,

Thanks for that - good pickup! The guy I got the photo from was a friend of a friend that's with the CFA. Apparently he posted it on his Facebook wall among other pics he took yesterday (I'm assuming). I hadn't seen that Echuca Tornado pic until now so thought it was genuine (from Melton). Apologies to all, thanks for the investigation Meso. Looks like in future I'll just have to make sure I'm there to take the pic myself.
Sorry for any confusion, and yes I do hope that some pics come through in the next couple of days.

Cheers,

Nate

[crikey]

Great photo Hamlan. You sound like you had a real feast on storm photography yesterday. Thanks for all the commentary and reports. Look forward to reading today.

We had a very eventful trip back leaving Melbourne yesterday .
When we arrived at Calder ' servo' station we were hit by a front and torrential rain.
Then we travelled a bit further along the calder.. (10 mins.). and a lightning bolt no more than 50 m away hit near the side of the hwy.and it wasn't even raining .Phew!
And then to our west and above us we saw a storm developing which would later smash the north of Melbourne
Here is 30 sec of the view we saw of the storm before it arrived in northern suburbs.
I am not sure if the feature in the background is a funnel or a small rain shaft
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As we drove further north we looked back to see the heavens opening with intense rain behind us.

[Gordon]

In Melbourne and on the Ring Road for the worst (best?) of the storms. Talk about chaos! Just missed the really big hail so the car is
okay. Got home to a mere 11 mm in the gauge, but enough to push us to a new annual record (since our arrival in 1996) of 1088.5 mm.