Victoria: Thunderstorm Outbreak. October 28th-November 3rd 2009

Karl Lijnders wrote:Convection continuing. Not the best picture but here are two points of convection. Mid level convection is the left arrow and above the house, surface convection is the right arrow which looks like soft serve.

What type of clouds do you call those black dots in the sky?

what time are the storms booked for?

Wind went from moderate N to SSE could see it coming in and even though I had Northerlies over my head could hear the Flemington racecourse music/talking noise come in before the southerly even hit me which was 4 seconds before it did.

Plenty of convection to my west the southerly is weak not a gusty change at all temp dropped from 33c to 24c.

You got the change John? Wow it's up to 34.8 here, northerly is blowing just that little bit stronger now as well!

And the sun has just gone behind the clouds that have been slowly building to my west.

Karl Lijnders wrote:Convection continuing. Not the best picture but here are two points of convection. Mid level convection is the left arrow and above the house, surface convection is the right arrow which looks like soft serve.

Hi Karl, there is a ton of convection around here now both surface and mid to upper looking east...what time are you expecting kick off?

Still nothing happening here at all, only cloud visible in the sky is some thin cirrus to the NW. Of course my view from here is only of the immediate area being located in a small valley between hills with a lot of trees around but with the temperature at 28C and now 2:46pm it is a little worrying, especially as the central ranges is supposed to be the hot spot today. CAPE and LI should be pretty high now so some other mechanism is stopping convection even commencing here. Many times a very dynamic storm setup like this doesn't eventuate because there is some sort of a cap or dry slot or something like that somewhere in the atmosphere.

Not asserting that this is the case just expressing some worry that I'm still feeling about this, mainly from past experience. All other indicators point to an explosion of convection that should be happening now. Plenty of time for something to spark off, even well into the evening there is a chance but I wish it would hurry up a bit.

droughtbreaker wrote:Still nothing happening here at all, only cloud visible in the sky is some thin cirrus to the NW. Of course my view from here is only of the immediate area being located in a small valley between hills with a lot of trees around but with the temperature at 28C and now 2:46pm it is a little worrying, especially as the central ranges is supposed to be the hot spot today. CAPE and LI should be pretty high now so some other mechanism is stopping convection even commencing here. Many times a very dynamic storm setup like this doesn't eventuate because there is some sort of a cap or dry slot or something like that somewhere in the atmosphere.

Not asserting that this is the case just expressing some worry that I'm still feeling about this, mainly from past experience. All other indicators point to an explosion of convection that should be happening now. Plenty of time for something to spark off, even well into the evening there is a chance but I wish it would hurry up a bit.

I'd give it another one to two hours, then start worrying! Peak is always around 4pm.

Yeah guys, a few more hours and things will be rocking...

Got a couple of small solid Cu here as well as some other small convection, just sprung up in the last hour or so. Not sure how far it will got, but it will be interesting to watch. Some good looking storms through the east atm anyway.

AUS_Twisted wrote:

Karl Lijnders wrote:Convection continuing. Not the best picture but here are two points of convection. Mid level convection is the left arrow and above the house, surface convection is the right arrow which looks like soft serve.

What type of clouds do you call those black dots in the sky?

Giant swarn of bees perhaps...

Nothing much to report here except it is damn hot and the missus just got home from work and the first thing she came out with was...

"So what are we going to do about this heat then?"

I haven't stopped laughing at her since, she doesn't see the funny side of it...

Some convection happening here, although our seabreeze is kicking in more as the arvo goes along

norfolk wrote:You got the change John? Wow it's up to 34.8 here, northerly is blowing just that little bit stronger now as well!

And the sun has just gone behind the clouds that have been slowly building to my west.

Yeah Tony windchange came through here 245pm about 24c now

wind change has just hit, so it travelled from the show grounds to here in caroline springs in about 20mins. fast or slow?

Would love to get some sort of rainfall out of all this. Although it's humid these temps are certainly not helping the soil moisture profile around here. Grass is browning off already here. Just our luck to have tropical humidity with us and get stuff all rain. Anyway that's life. Clouds starting to move into the cumulus position

Rhino.

No change yet here, it has taken nearly 2hrs for it to move through from Moorabbin to here!! Come on convection!!!

Can see it building nicely and not all at once to the west and northwest and even to my southwest as well. Middle level convection getting some organisation to the east and southeast too.

Hot with strongish northerly winds here and 34C.

I would suspect the BoM to issue a STW for parts of the east soon... ?

Quite slow Tony I would say

Does seem odd how most of Vic is still without convection...would have thought that by now most of Vic would be covered in towers..i guess the Northerly has mixed down to the surface and dried things out a little judging by the massive dry slot at 600mb..

Anyway big area of convection out near Stawell so it could be a let one again or may even all go north of us here..next hour will tell. Would like to see widespread towers by 3.30 real time. In any case we should get some mid level stuff developing later too so it could still get going late..

Sat pic shows the best convection in central areas west of Melbourne. Also a nice area of convection through the Mallee/Wimmera.

Some chunky Cu now to our east (towards Monbulk and a few popping up over head but very weak). The sounding shows a relatively warm/dry slot around 800hPa which must be the explanation for the lack of deep convection in central areas so far. Need something to get organised and push through it (could also be some mixing down of drier air from above 600hPa).

Further east is some big storms in the Snowys/Upper Murray/East Gippsland.

Still Hot with Northerlies here, currently 32.6c the hottest so far today. Notice Cape Otway 14c and fog.

Alot of Cu developing through the Mallee and Wimmera at the moment, things are starting to look up.

Rhino.

ps : looks like David bet me to it.

I think it will catch us by surprise how quickly it goes from nothing to everything.

Yep, hour or so and things will be moving. Convectiong gradually growing here, still only a distant Cu about.

Hi all, what a great night and considering my area barely got a drop of rain and I didnt use my wipers once all night I still got to watch those amazingly active storms move across the bay and hit the eastern and southern suburbs. I got some cool shots from Mount Cooper in Bundoora and the last from Doncaster Shoppingtown after midnight, including several that remind me of my USA photos! here's hoping for more today

Quite a bit of surface convection developing to the north of Melbourne and west as well. This seems to get to about 600hPa and then stop...

There is enough cloud to get it through the dry slot and when they do, well we will know about it.

Still no southerly here.

20 degrees in Moorabbin now and 23 in Melbourne CBD.

Few more clouds about in the sky.