16/4/2000
Jane ONeill, Andrew McDonald
I'd been interested in today (Sunday) since yesterday...and most definitely interested after listening to the lightning static on the radio at 2am this morning (this turned out to be Andrew Boskell's Devonport storm). The morning hours saw me wandering aimlessly around the house without being able to settle to anything - checking the images, radar, Melbourne webcam, my Weather Wizard, pressure, wind direction...round and round and round, a condition that Storm Chaser Dog recognises and gets quite edgy about (probably because it quite often results in him having to spend hours by himself while I'm off chasing storms). Took him for a walk to get a fix on what was happening...first thing I spotted was a grunty congesting cumulus to the southwest of the city (I'd already been aware of a cumulus there from the webcam, but the half hour lag in the webcam hadn't indicated the explosive growth that had taken place). Cadence had to jog around the block to keep up with me after that - there were also congesting cumulus to the southeast and northwest, and walking a dog wasn't going to keep me home any longer than I could manage!
Out the door in less than 5 minutes - the first decision was whether to take the Monash Freeway south of me which would point me in the direction of Laverton & Werribee or the Eastern Freeway which would give me the options of heading NW, W or SW but which would take me rather further to the north to start with. Chose the latter & drove up to the hill in Kew (my usual haunt during working hours) to take some video and photographs while orienting myself to the action. Decided to head to the Western Ring Road and then head south and take it as I went.
Looking SW from Kew towards the first
cell of the day, maturing over the Queenscliff - Pt Lonsdale area of the
Bellarine Peninsula
Looking NE from the Laverton area
towards Mt Dandenong early in the afternoon
The cell with the most promise was in the Laverton - Hoppers Crossing - Point Cook area - easily reachable within about 20 minutes. I drove off theFreeway and turned westwards to stop and take video of the base of this multicell until a very close cg had me diving back into the car.
Looking SW from the city
Looking SE from the western side of
the Geelong Freeway - this was my target.
I went across the freeway overpass into a new housing estate with no trees and great views of the oncoming storm. Found a short dirt road under the RFB & set the video up on the tripod and got back into the car. Was on the phone to Matt Smith when small hail (~1cm) started to fall - out of the car to rescue the video camera, but left the tripod sitting in the middle of nowhere and continued videoing from the car. This system became so lightning active that I refused to get out of the car and rescued the tripod by driving alongside it and lifting it through the window.
The hail lasted 3 or 4 minutes and gave way to heavy rain & continuous lightning directly overhead. I drove to the other side of the freeway trying to get far enough west to be able to get a decent shot of the receding cell. Was forced to go to McDonalds to buy some chips to use up some time while the cell moved NE towards Melbourne!!
Went back to the freeway and pulled over where I had an unobstructed view to the NE & Melbourne and the SE and another smaller cell that had developed near the You Yangs. Got some great video and photos and some interested looks from passersby - what's odd about someone climbing on top of their car on the side of a Freeway to get a decent photo of a cloud?
Looking SE from the side of the
Geelong Freeway
The same cell about 15 minutes later
from the Western Ring Road
and late in the day, Debbie Parker got these pics of the same cell...
Photos - Debbie Parker
Continued up to the western ring road while trying to a decent shot of the cell which had just bypassed the CBD....
Looking E towards the city from the
side of the Western Ring Road
Looking SE from the city
Andrew McDonald continues his recollections of this day....
After a phonecall from Jane at 12:30pm
telling me that there was some serious looking congestus to the SW and W I decided on a
stormchase after checking radar, soundings and forecast charts. LI's of -1 to -2 and CAPE
of 500 or so across Central Victoria had me more than a little interested, along with the
20knt 850mb winds, 60knt 500mb winds and a 300mb jet of 105 knts. Also the temperature
profile of the atmosphere was interesting me with thoughts of hail popping into mind with
850 temps of 8C, 500mb temps of -21C and 300mb temps of -46C.
I headed out the Western Ring Road and headed NW on the Calder Highway to Diggers Rest. I
pulled off the road and waited and watched. Decaying anvils to my N and more active cells
to my S and W kept me interested for about 20 minutes while I waited for something further
W to take off as the cells to the S, while being the best looking, were heading over the
metropolitan area into traffic and unchaseable country. At about 2:15pm I decided to head
for some developing cells to my W and WSW which were about 50km away. These two
cells both had nice flanking lines and the W cell had a nice overshoot (no photos these as
the features were picked up through small breaks in the low cloud). I headed WSW towards
Melton to intercept these cells which were probably NNW of Geelong at the time. I
stopped briefly in Melton East to take a photo of the cells to the S and also of a cell to
my N, which, although looked nice, was outflow dominated and not worth chasing. I soon
found myself in some familiar country out on the Exford Road which heads due W towards the
Bacchus Marsh - Geelong Road which was what I was aiming for. Turned S onto that road and
now had a clear view of the line of cells which stretched from Lara NW to Meredith. I
stopped again just out of Balliang East after seeing lightning from the closest of these
cells (which were now combining to form a line) and an interesting lowering. I got a
phonecall from Matt Smith with a brief radar update letting me know that the line of cells
varied from 2-10mm/h up to 20-40mm/h. I waited here for about 15 minutes before deciding
to core punch this line. I headed S again along the Bacchus Marsh - Geelong Road but the
RFB was soon right overhead and a new cell was developing closer to the city (now to my E)
so I decided against core punching this weakish line and headed E towards Werribee.
Lightning became more frequent with about 5 or so crackles from the radio per minute and a
few visible CG's just 2 or 3 km away made this drive E very interesting. I had a heavier
precipitation shaft to the S which was fairly close and CG's where coming out of the RFB
between where I was and the precip shaft. I eventually ran out of road heading E so I
picked one heading slightly N which would take me
a little further away from the RFB and precip area where I hoped I'd be able to take some
photos. This didn't quite eventuate like I'd wanted as the road heading N was just 500m
long. There was a dirt road heading E again so I turned onto this hoping that it wasn't
too wet and slippery as I was out of mobile phone range. It turns out that this road kept
me running parallel with this system from just N of the You Yangs all the way into
Werribee. While on this road I had a clear view of the precip area which continued to get
heavier just to my S. A new RFB formed on the outflow of the heaviest precipitation area
just up the road ahead of me as I entered the outskirts of Werribee.
I spoke to Jane ONeill who was sitting just up the road in Hoppers Crossing taking video of the event as it unfolded. I told her I was going to continue E to try and get myself under the RFB before it dropped its load to see if it was going to hail. I used some creative guesswork to get myself onto Sayers Road which would take me right under the cell which had already started to drop a thick rain curtain down from the middle of the RFB. I sped (literally) along Sayers road but as I was heading into suburban areas I was held up by slow drivers, traffic lights and a train as well. I was still about 3km from the precip shaft with only 10km until I ran out of road (I don't think my car would enjoy driving through Port Phillip Bay) but I pushed on and entered the rain at Altona and within 10 seconds was slowed to 40km/h from the torrential rain. The roads were awash and driving was difficult but I continued heading E towards Williamstown through the rain which kept getting heavier but I was yet to encounter hail (not that I could see out the windscreen though - hehehe). I was stopped again by a train entering Williamstown but as soon as it passed I was heading the last 1km East before reaching the western edge of the bay. The torrential rain had flooded the main street of Williamstown with water lapping up onto the footpath and stretching across the road in several areas and I encountered some small hail (to about .8cm).
I rang the Bureau of Meteorology and reported the the flooding in Williamstown and Altona. I headed back into the heart of Williamstown to take some photos of the flash flooding and found a side road street totally flooded from one side to the other with about 6-8 inches of water in the centre and about 4 inches at the sides. I drove through this and pulled off to the side of the road (into the flood water - hehe) and took a few photos of this. I could still hear the thunder from the cell as the precip curtain was sitting about 2km offshore and there was still plenty of lightning. As this cell was now unchaseable I headed back out the way I came to see if there was any more significant flooding between Williamstown and Altona but it had subsided significantly by the time I drove back. A new cell had developed to the SW of the other one so I found a spot to pull off the road in Laverton North and I took some photos of this new cell and the still-rampaging cell heading across the Bay. With over an hour of daylight left and several cells still firing up to the NW and W I headed out to a cleared area where I had a view of all the cells and picked the next best looking one which was to the NW of the city, probably up near where I started the day at Diggers Rest. I headed back to the ring road and out the Western Highway. I turned N towards the cell just past Caroline Springs down Clarkes Road. It turns out that this was also a "dry weather road only" (dirt road) too. I stopped about 1km down this road and watched as this cell developed a new RFB and scud formed under this and was dragged up to the base. This small lowering was not rotating and I didn't expect it to start given the linear wind shear. The lowering remained visible for the next 20 minutes as I headed back to the Western Highway and onto the Western Ring Road. Once again this cell dumped its load just up the road ahead of me and with the sun setting behind me an awesome rainbow formed in the orange coloured rain curtain and I took a few photos out the windscreen. I pushed into the back of the rain curtain and encountered moderately heavy rain from about Broadmeadows all the way to Bundoora where I took the Plenty Road exit and headed SE along Plenty road into what seemed to be the heaviest rain. Within 200m of heading further S I encountered he heaviest rain of the day with visibility (while stationary at the lights) was cut down to about 25m. It had been raining heavily in Bundoora for a while and this downpour soon flooded the roads again and the intersection of Plenty Road and Grimshaw Street was like the intersection of two rivers. I plowed through about 3-4 inches of water here and pulled a U-turn and then turned towards home down Grimshaw street (all the while still sitting in torrential rain). I encountered more flash flooding at the intersection of Grimshaw Street and Frye Street and again along the Greensborough Bypass and more on Elder Street (just down the road from my house).
I got home just as the rain stopped and was informed by my parents that we'd had hail at our house about 2 minutes before (very small). I checked the rain gauge as the cell moved off to the E and weakened but thunder was still audible for about 15 minutes. 12mm of rain in about 18 minutes according to my dad. I'm sure other areas like Bundoora would've had slightly more but I thought this was fairly good.
All in all a good chase for a late
season system.
Thanks to Matt Smith (for the radar updates), Clyve Herbert (who rang me at the start of
the chase), Jane ONeill (who alerted me to the developing situation and then kept me
informed as to what was happening where she was) and Claire McDonald (for telling me how
good the storms were out in the E of the state while I was in the W of the state - thanks
sis - hehe). I hope the other Melbournites enjoyed this system. Thanks and congrats to
Nick Sykes for picking up the potential for this system
yesterday even though the BoM were only going for showers.
MSL analysis Courtesy - Bureau of Meteorology
Radar loop - courtesy - Bureau of Meteorology
Skew T's - courtesy of University of Wyoming
Liftex Index 10amAEST - courtesy NOAA
Surface CAPE 4pmAEST - courtesy NOAA
Matt Smith for saving images for us while we were running around the countryside
omni-net - best webcam in the world!!
Bureau of Meteorology
University of Wyoming
NOAA