Victoria: Heatwave November 7th-12th 2009

Johnno wrote:The Bay & Coastal temps continue to roar up today it is at an average of 18.8c Port phillip bay now!

Thinking a swim after work is an idea then

Ok, well big surprise when i got off of work, massive convection all around me. Got a couple of shots of some nice LP cells building up. Will post later on tonight though. Have to head out now. Wonder if i'll get some lightning shots tonights...

Several thunderstorms developing in the north now. Interesting.

31, 31, 34, 31, 27, 28, 33 next 7 days forecast for Melbourne.

It's a nice 25c now here.

Some bubbling happening out to the north east.

Just got some big-drops rain and have subsequently raced to view the radar and a decent storm appears headed this way from the SSW. Don't think this was forecast!!!

Does not look as hot on Saturday now. Temperatures in the low to mid 30's across the south instead of high 30's, however the northern regions should continue the sweltering with 40 degree heat. Sunday looks the hottest with a south to southwest wind change appproaching the state [entering western Victoria during the afternoon and central parts during the evening or at night]. We should have freshening northwesterly winds making it a bad fire weather day and temperatures above 40 in the north and temps mid to high 30's over the south, possibly touching 40 at some locations. There does not look to be very much rainfall associated with the change apart from a few isolated showers and thunderstorms, mostly near the change.

A lot milder after that but temps becoming very hot again in the north by Wednesday, then throughout by Thursday.

Today, a fine hot day. Temps near 34 degrees. A little cloud here this afternoon.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41779751@N02/4094275359/sizes/o/
The pic in this link is a screen grab of the temp traces on my weather station so far this month. Today it hit 44.6°!! The station may over-read by a degree or two in extreme conditions like this but ordinarily it is pretty close.

More rain as I type here now, the outside temp is still 35.8.

Looking like quite a few thundery shower developing to our north around Ouyen and across to Swan Hill. Dunno how much would be in them as they looked to be pretty high based. Big fire started to the SW of me today. Most likey started by a header but geez it took a while to put out. Got a fair amount of Pyrocumulus too.

Saw some mammoth convection in the middle distance coming home, didn't look all that far away but some of it resembled your classic mushroom cloud, another Cb was a massive block shaped updraught that just went straight up, some very high tops on the clouds as well. Bizarre that the radar is showing nothing, they were clearly within around 50km of here at the most.

There are some beefy looking storms to our E, Would be about Boort or maybe a little further E than that

Interesting day with just a little bit of extra moisture in the low level and a small cooling at the ~900hPa turning the day convective. Models were onto this in terms of LI but had hardly any rain (which actually looks pretty accurate).

Quite a cooling in the far southeast now over the next 2 days with the 850Ts heading down towards the low teens for Friday. Still blazing hot up north.

Will be touch and go for Melbourne getting 30C the next two days.

The messy frontal system/low Sunday into Tuesday is now looking reasonable for showers/isolated storms and will see things cool off a lot (though perhaps only briefly). EC and NOGAPS both put falls locally above 5mm through southern and eastern areas. Next week then looks pretty interesting for some solid fronts later in the week.

Drove from Melbourne to Horsham yesterday and today have driven thru from Edenhope up to Rainbow. BOY was it hot! Even the locals said so!!!!

Tar was melting on the roads near Rainbow which i find weird given this area should be prone to this sort of weather. Heading up to Hopetoun tomorrow.

Quite pleasant out here in Horsham atm. Must be still well into the 30 s tho.

Things are really drying out though. Perhaps a few regrets about lowering the water restrictions out this way Mr Holding????

Just noticed that Macedon Forestry weather station recorded a +6.6C anomaly in November 1982. No wonder the Ash Wednesday fires were so bad here given what happened in the months before it. Will be hard not to beat that this month.

Ok, here was the first couple pf cells forming up at:525pm tonight to bendigo's NW...

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And some of the solid convection building an hour later looking to my NE.

Nice work Rik!

Just thought I would throw in a comment about total firebans. This Sunday may see one for much of the state, and after all this heat and no rainfall mid-late next week might see them again!

nice photos....I could make out some of them all the way from down here....but obviously nothing happened here.

Nice and 'cool' now. I wonder if we may struggle to the 30 tomorrow?

Nice photos rikjpool. One thing that struck me about those storms was how narrow and tall they were. Was clear a lot of thermals were having trouble punching through the warm layer (below about 700hPa) but once they did they raced up to the tropopause. There was one cell during the arvo north of the city which was much taller than it was wide and clearly a Cb.

Coolest night for the week in Ferny Creek with 18.6C. Continuing humid with a Dp of 12C.

Looks like those of us in the south are going to escape the worst of the heat with east to southeast flow Thur-Fri-Sat and only a brief burst of northerlies on Sunday. Very lucky as the airmass could have easily seen 4 35C+ days in a row. Looks horribly hot up north.

Doppler currently showing some very strong winds coming from the SW. Interesting.

Should have left the windows open when I left this morning. That SW'er is moving at a good rate and dropping temps nicely.

Not sure about 31 today for CBD.

Looks like Melbourne is going to fall agonizingly short of a sixth successive day of 30 or more. Current high of 29.8 just after 2pm. Southerlies winning the war today after being belted the last 5 days.

Not for many suburbs however so generally still in record territory here with 31C today. Some very nice SE winds now which should help cool.

Next week looking nasty so I think discussion will fold into there this evening so I will lock this thread from midnight tonight

I recorded 31.8 today, the same as the airport, so the seabreeze didn't have too much of an effect here. At Tarneit (work), at times it felt cool at times very humid.

Actually a fairly reasonable day today. Looks like we got around 30C at home as well. Models generally in the process of breaking the pattern down to a more normal one by next Thursday. Still some truly nasty days in amongst it, particularly next Wednesday or Thursday when it looks like high 30s for Melbourne unless cloud becomes a factor.

27.8C up here in Ferny Creek today so cooler but still hot by our standards. Still humid - Dp in the low to mid teens all day.

The weekend is look really messy - but that's the other thread