SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS - NOVEMBER 5, 2000

Showers and Storms developed throughout SE QLD and in coastal parts of NE NSW again on this day, with several strong or severe cells.  The activity once again developed by late morning in NE NSW, and initial development in SE QLD wasn't far behind.  Their were reports of hail from several locations in SE QLD, but nothing in the severe range, although radar images suggested it was quite possible in several locations.

Anthony Cornelius chased on this day, scoring a spectacular wall cloud and some awesome hail shafts! Click here to see his chase report.

I chased in the northern suburbs of Brisbane for the first half of the afternoon, and my summary is below.

With the budged starting to strain under the pressure of several storm days in a row, i decided to chase/observe around my local location on this day.  When i saw a fairly long and thick inflow band on a newly developed Cb tower to my west in the early afternoon, i knew it was going to be a good day.  This soon developed into a storm, and before long a nice well rounded shelf cloud was in view.  I decided to drive closer to this cell, which had now become quite lightning active, but turned around when i received pea size hail mixed in with the anvil precipitation!  I stuck around the Burpengary/Caboulture area for the next hour or so, watching quite a long shelf cloud develop.  Lightning at this stage was frequent at times, with many forked and strobing strikes - some of which strobed up to half a dozen times!  Further development around this storm, with persistent heavy rain at times, made it hard to take pictures.  However, i managed to pull off the series seen below, showing the shelf cloud developing, then another interesting base with inflow to the north ahead of it.  This base developed into quite a strong storm, with constant rolling thunder and several nice Cg's - but once again heavy rain prevented me from taking any pictures.

I returned home to download the pictures i had taken off my digital camera, and to have a look at radar.  Radar images, and an increasingly dark sky to the SW prompted me to drive out towards Ipswich.  On my approach lightning was on the increase, with a seemingly very large cell moving NE towards the northern suburbs of Brisbane.  As i got closer it became apparent that this cell was featureless, and i decided to park somewhere and let it move over the top of me. The lightning was just amazing, with dozens of Cg's striking within 2km of me, and some within 100m and strobing up to half a dozen times!  With only moderate rain and light winds, i decided to follow the storm NE.  The end result was over an hour of close lighting, and rain increasing to heavy/very heavy at times.  As the sun went down, several cells became lightning active in an arc from the NW around to the SE, with some lovely anvil crawlers and further spectacular Cg's.  A lightning picture (captured with a digital camera) taken from Ipswich was submitted by Dan Keogh, and can be seen above.

When i arrived home, an email from John Woodbridge at Mt Crosby alerted me to the fact that if i had of gone north on a road from Ipswich, instead of doing a U turn thinking i was going the wrong way, i would have seen everything he saw - which is summarised below.

Translated to very nice conventional squall line type storm at Mt. Crosby around 6:00pm.  Heaps of lightning, closest CG strike approx 200m. Total of 24mm very welcome rain in around 30min.  Only really showed pink on radar.  Looked green as it approached and appeared to have cyclonic rotation above the shelf cloud.  But no hail and not much wind once again.  The ideal observers storm I thought, all action but no damage.

John also took several pictures of a large cell around the Boonah area on this day.  These pictures, and his description of them, are below.

Shot (on the left) of large storm over the Boonah area, storm is approx 80km SW from camera. Wall cloud and lowerings to the NW of precip area under new updraft visible at top of photo.  If you look carefully, just to the right of the wall cloud you can just make out Cunninghams gap through the lighter precip.  Twin peaks of Mts. Mitchell & Cordeuex are around 1100m, the storm is a little in front that, so I guess the cloud base is about 1000m.  That puts the hard updrafts at the top of the picture at around 12,000m.  And another shot a bit later (on the right).  Unfortunately 80km is a bit far to get good detail of the lowerings.

Meanwhile, looking the other way towards Brisbane, this small cell over the Kenmore area had a bizarre little lowered inflow region:

Flash flooding was reported from southern Tweed Heads (on the NSW/QLD border) with up to 30cm of water covering some roads!

Rainfall totals for central and southern QLD in the 24 hours to 9am November 6 were mostly light to moderate, with a hanful of heavier totals.

Some of the highest totals in central QLD were Baralaba (Capricornia) with 52mm, The Glebe (Central Highlands and Coalfields) 47mm, Collinsvilla (Central Coast and Whitsundays) 45mm and Taroom (Central Highlands and Coalfields) 41mm.

Some of the highest totals in southern QLD were Monto (Wide Bay and Burnett) with 108mm, Strathpine (South East Coast) 58mm Bundaberg (Wide Bay and Burnett) 55mm, Kenilworth (South East Coast) 51mm, and Wallumbilla (Maranoa and Warrego) with 49mm.

The atmosphere in NE NSW was more supportive of severe activity and strong storms carved a path of damage, dropping large hail and even sporing a torando!  The following information is courtesy of Michael Bath, Halden Boyd and the ABC.

NIMBIN

A tornado has ripped through the area from Stoney's Chute to Nimbin (a distance of 6km along a ENE track), damaging several homes and bringing down large trees. A talkback caller has reported 4.5cm diameter hail in Nimbin. This damage and touchdown occurred just 10km ENE of where I encountered the hailstorm and 40knot winds south of Kyogle from the same storm. Looks like I watched and experienced the birth and effects of a supercell !! (Nimbin is about 30ks NNW of Lismore)

UKI

Hail the size of "tennis balls" hit the small village of Uki, which is NE of Nimbin and just ESE of Mount Warning.

DORRIGO

Hail the size of "tennis balls" cut a swathe 3km long just west of the town shortly after 12 midday. Dozens of cars were smashed while their occupants were attending a funeral.

Jason Rainforest managed to take some pictures of a very large supercell moving through northern NE NSW during the mid afternoon, these can be seen below.

NE NSW storm chaser and ASWA secretary Michael Bath chased on this day - click here to see his chase report and pictures.

Significant AWS observations

Amberly recorded a rain rate of 34.8mm/h at 5:37pm.

Coolangatta recorded a rain rate of 36mm/h 7:25pm, 62.4mm/h at 7:27pm, 126mm/h at 7:35pm and 109.2mm/h at 7:37pm.  In the 12 minutes between 7:25pm and 7:37pm 22.8mm of rain was recorded.  Gale force gusts of 34 knots were also recorded at 7:35 and 7:37pm.

Nambour recorded a rain rate of 48mm/h at 6:52pm.

Credits

Thanks to Laurier Williams, who provides the significant AWS observations on his website Australian Weather Links and News and also Michael Bath (from Australian Severe Weather), Halden Boyd and the ABC for the information on the NE NSW storms.