Plans to go up Mt. Dandenong were finalised by 5:00pm and at the same time the cloud cleared and the temperature rose by 3 or 4 degrees. My sister, Claire, and I left home in Greensborough at 5:40pm and noticed a few towers going up a bit then collapsing on themselves. We did get a bit more hopeful with one tower to the E of Mt. Dandenong going up higher and stronger than the rest but it too collapsed . Also on the drive I noticed a large Cb to the NW which I thought looked interesting but didn't really pay much attention to it.
Cell over Mt Dandenong.
Looking SE from Bayswater.
Photo - J ONeill (ASWA archive)
After a brief stop at Hungry Jacks, I arrived at Mt Dandenong lookout car park at 6:45pm to see Jane madly waving at me because we'd never met before and only knew the make of each others cars (this was quite amusing). The view from up there is awesome but the sky looked pretty average and my initial thoughts were for possible thundery showers if we were lucky. Clyve Herbert rang us from the train and told us to stay put for a while because he too had seen the Cb earlier and thought it had some promise. We could see two distinct cells that weren't active (just showers) - one over the Macedon ranges to the WNW and the other to the WSW - possibly the Geelong cell reported by Chris Gribben. A third cell could also be seen developing between the two to the W which was probably the Melton cell reported also by Chris Gribben.
Cell to the NW from Mt Dandenong.
Photo - Andrew McDonald
Jane and I saw the first CG at about 7:00pm (Claire missed it cause she was eating - hehehe) from the middle cell. This caused a bit of excitement and Jane grabbed her video camera and I grabbed the SLR although the storms were probably still 80km away. The third cell developed a nice precipitation curtain which made it difficult to distinguish between the three cells as they now all had precipitation curtains with only little bits of light separating them. CG's became slightly more frequent - about one every minute - and Clyve rang again because he wanted to know if we'd seen the lightning. Most lightning was from the middle cell but the other two cells were also becoming active.
Looking WNW from Mt Dandenong
Photo - Andrew McDonald
By 7:30pm there were a few other people watching to the storms approach from the carpark. CC's and CG's were becoming more and more regular with the two cells to the W and WNW seeming more active. Not long after 7:30pm we noticed a distinct lowering in the cell to the W. Clyve phoned again because he'd seen it too and got excited. This lowering may've been a shelf cloud or even a wall cloud as there was a funnel sighted (and video taped by a member of the public in Sunbury). Jane was starting to get a bit worried as she only had 30 mins of tape left so she wasn't sure whether to get more tape or stay put. Two more intense CG's and Jane was staying put. This turned out to be a good move by Jane as all cells intensified rapidly. Lightning was much more regular with CC's, CG's and some combinations of both every few seconds now. Jane got one great direct hit in the N suburbs which left a bright blue residual glow on the ground for a second or more (possibly a direct hit to a sub-station). By this stage the carpark was half full of onlookers all watching the storms across the city.
The two storms from Geelong and Melton seemed to merge as the crossed the bay, tracking almost due E but the Macedon cell seemed almost stationary with slight movement to the SE. It was decided at this point that this was the most active storm seen in Melbourne for a long time. We could see scud and other lowering forming on the SE edge of the storm which was basically just one huge cell now.
Jane ran out of tape at about 8:10pm just as the lightning really got spectacular. While the video wasn't running we saw some huge anvil crawlers as well as severe CG's which pulsed for nearly a full second. Jane got desperate for a tape and asked people in the carpark if they'd like to sell any spare videotapes they might have but to no avail. My other sister, Sarah (who is not a big storm fan), rang from home in Greensborough (a northern suburb of Melbourne) to tell us that it was really bad with strong wind, heavy rain and close thunder and that she was a bit scared. Jane found a tape in her car and decided that whatever was on it wasn't nearly as important as this storm so she whacked it in and had another 30 minutes of taping. I was trying to take stills of the cloud structure and lightning.
We could see the precipitation curtain engulfing the city and make it's way across the E suburbs towards us. Jane made an observation that the entire cell seemed to be rotating on a northerly axis and Clyve had also made this observation after another phone call. The carpark was now packed with onlookers.
At about 8:30pm, an unattached shelf cloud formed along the gust front but it grew so rapidly that it became attached within 5 minutes. Lightning was up to about 1 per second now. Jane got a few more close CG hits as they were starting to get pretty close (within 4km). It was about now that we heard the first real thunder - it was strange as we had heard nothing until it was so close because of the easterly inflow to the storm system coming from behind us.
We watched the gust front approach and the rain was fairly light at first although largish drops. We retreated to our cars as we could see the heavy rain approaching and lightning was getting dangerously close (sitting on a metal guardrail isn't sensible during a storm). The gust front hit us at 8:43pm with heavy rain and strong winds. CG's now only 2km away and lighting up the entire carpark. Jane ran out of tape at 8:45pm and decided to go home and maybe come back later with more tapes if it was still looking good. Claire and I stayed in the car, which was being rocked by winds to approximately 60km/h, and rain of probably near 60mm/h too. Due to our altitude in the carpark, scud was below, in front of and above us (we were sitting in the base of the storm) so basically the CC's became CG's too. One strike hit the TV tower within 70m of us causing the whole sky to light up and we went deaf and blind at the same time.
Jane rang us from home at 9:20pm and reported flash flooding down the Mt. Dandenong Tourist Rd. and also on Canterbury Rd. We watched the lightning for another 20 minutes after that with plenty of CG's and CC's, rain up to 40mm/h and wind gusts to 50km/h. At one stage, Claire thinks she may've see ball lightning when she saw a series of spark-like things emerge from some trees just 30m away. There was definitely no CG which had hit the trees that close so maybe she saw ball lightning.
Jane called again at 9:40pm and decided to head back up the mountain, hoping the storm would clear to the east so we could get more footage/photo's from the back of the storm. Jane had told me of another carpark looking east and it was agreed that I would be directed there when Jane got closer. We stayed watching the lightning and I put the radio on at 10:00pm to hear that there was a severe thunderstorm warning out for northern and eastern suburbs (that is where we were) with winds to 100km/h, large hail and flash flooding. We found out later that this warning had been issued at about 7:30pm and cancelled at 10:30pm.
At 10:05 we moved to the other side of the mountain. There was heaps of leaf litter, bark and water on the road with wind and rain continuing. The fire siren was going off as we drove past the station and it sounded just like an American tornado-warning siren. This was scary, knowing we were sitting near the back of a severe, possibly rotating thunderstorm. After a few problems finding Jane (courtesy of my phone battery running out completely), we met and watched the storm move away as lightning activity slowed to about 2-4 per minute. We decided to call it a night at 10:35pm but on the drive home we saw more CC's to the NW which Jane later confirmed another cell near Macedon with rain rates of 40-100mm/h for a short while before dropping back to 20-40mm/h soon after 1:05am. The last activity for the night was a very faint thunderclap I heard at 1:07am.
DAMAGE SUMMARY
Updated 24th April 1999 - J ONeill