SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS - NOVEMBER 27, 2000

A combination between a surface and an upper level trough caused showers and storms to develop on the ranges in NE NSW and SE QLD on this day.  Some of these were quite intense, with 100mm/h+ intensities on radar indicating the possibility of hail, or at least very heavy rain.  One complex in SE QLD late in the day, N and NE of Warwick,  showed 100mm/h+ intensity for 1 hour.  Hail was reported from this complex, although the size was unknown at the time this report was written.

Looking at the weather report for toady showed only a possible shower in the district, and early morning was about the same as monday, cool early but heating up quickly. This morning was very humid and hot and they day just got worse. With no significant cloud I resigned myself to a boring day. The forecast wasn't right and the atmosphere looked too stable  for decent development. About 12:30 PM Warwick was struck by a rogue bolt of lightning and the deafening boom echoed around.

But half an hour later a storm development started in earnest. To the SSE  a line of storms developed and slowly moved over us the whole time building. Massive CG's were observed and what looked to be a shelf cloud trying to form in several places. In the space of half an hour it had gone from isolated showers to a line of storms (or one big storm) and it looked to have a tiny amount  of rotation in it from my perspective. Thunder was heard up to every 10 seconds with visible CG's. The rain came and was extremely  heavy for a period of ten minutes probably dumping about 15mm in East Warwick where I was but only 8mm at my home 4 km west. This storm moved NNW which was very unusual and proves to be a significant factor here in producing severe storms. Hail was reported to the north and the structure of the storm would have made this likely. 

BOM warnings said this storm was severe as passing through Allora at about 3:30PM and the Warning was issued for Toowoomba. Visible also was another storm after this had passes to the SW which passes well to the West of Warwick

I was able to take some photos of this complex after it passed over Warwick, and intensified dramatically.  These were taken at the same time hail was falling.

Sorry about the poor quality, they were taken using digital
zoom, so no full size versions are available.

In NE NSW, a tornado struck the smalll town of Boggabri, causing significant damage to houses and sheds.  Information courtesy of Adam Cole has been posted on the Australian Severe Weather site, click here to go to the report.
 

In order of appearance : Brisbane local scale radar event loop (180k), Energex lightning tracker loop (50k), VIS satellite picture (155k), 500mb analysis (50k), 200mb analysis (50k), MSLP analysis (17k)