Victoria: Record Warm/Severe Cold Front August 15th-August 17th 2009

The line over the bay now crossing me, nothing to write home about, half the speed of last nights winds, not much rain.

The third (And i think final) band has just passed. Was very short but brought moderate-heavy rain.

This line is packing a punch, with heavy downpours and gusty winds but is quite short-lived.

The next band should thicken up once it hits the eastern suburbs (the hills tend to work well with these lines by increasing the friction).

Progs have the coldest air coming through mid morning tomorrow so it will get here but the high will be close behind... I wouldn't expect much in central areas. Maybe a mm or two if your lucky.

I really do like the look of the EC - showers/rain on and off for the next week+ with a strong westerly flow (SW/NW). One thing that is very weird though is the warmth - for most of the sequence the thickness values are running up around 548/552 in Vic which is too warm for snow and further north the 572 line comes down to the NSW/QLD border. Those numbers point to a very strong temperature gradient (very rapidly moving systems), and also the potential for many record highs to fall not a long way north of us.

What a fantastic system...plenty of rain and good solid coldies with more to follow overnight and tomorrow..

Getting moderate rain at the moment. Winds not as severe as earlier today.
Nice system

Winds have literally just picked up ahead of the next line coming through and just starting to rain again.

Bit late, but

Looks like Rowville and Endeavour Hills copped the worst of it.

Yep, you're right Karl. I was in Rowville and had a lovely CC right above me and slightly to the west with a loud rumble immediately following it. Pelted down for about 10 minutes, was great.

Wow, in the time it's taken me to write this post, the rain's quite heavy now & gusty winds (was relatively calm not ten minutes ago). Last time I checked the gauge we had 7mm but I think I've missed a bit of it due to the high winds.

Excellent thanks for the confirmation Lily.

Rain as hit hard here with 40 knot W winds. Really blowing sideways against the windows, quite like the hail storm two Mondays ago very early in the morning.

I think this will be it for Melbourne. There is a fair few showers over the west and this might make it but won't be as widespread as this.

May have to wait til later Wednesday

Also noted that the wind estimates have been almost halved for mid week and this could help with rainfall throughout southern VIC in the northerly flow.

10mm before the shower hit now.

Well, that line really fizzed for here. Not much from it all. Haven't checked the gauge but probably only about 0.2mm-0.5mm.

Karl Lijnders wrote:Excellent thanks for the confirmation Lily.

Rain as hit hard here with 40 knot W winds. Really blowing sideways against the windows, quite like the hail storm two Mondays ago very early in the morning.

I think this will be it for Melbourne. There is a fair few showers over the west and this might make it but won't be as widespread as this.

May have to wait til later Wednesday

Also noted that the wind estimates have been almost halved for mid week and this could help with rainfall throughout southern VIC in the northerly flow.

10mm before the shower hit now.

Is there more to come for my end of the state Karl or is that all of us also?

DarkEye, looking at the Mt Gambier radar, you will be in for a wet evening!!

DE - Wes has nailed it. I think showers increasing in the next few hours with a thunderstorm and hail thrown in the mix. Watchout for some very strong wind gusts too with showers.

Another 5-10mm likely overnight down your way.

Conditions easing tomorrow morning as the cold air moves southeast.

Nearly 9mm in Portland in the last 24hours.Mt Gambier looks awesome-hoping to get another 5mm or so

Karl, your thoughts on this cold pool given your recent forecast for tomorrow? I see Adelaide is still experiencing SW with a few nice coldies thrown in. I am optimistic that we might get a bit more activity later tonight and into the early morning Not as exciting as yesterday or today, but maybe 3-5mm.

I think that is a fair statement re: 3-5mm. If that cold pool holds on current projections then I think we will see a fair bit of showery activity early in the morning and they could be locally heavy and squally.

Tomorrow with a bit of diurnal heating we could see some more rainfall. As DJ suggested, progs have the high pressure system coming in fairly fast over the cold pool so this could stabalise the atmosphere but at this stage there is a few hours of showers there tomorrow. We may get lucky.

Mid week is look fairly fiesty again with the potential for a few thunderies Wed/Thurs.

Finally back home after a fantastic trip to the snow. I did forget the internet, so I could not post updates as the days progressed and could not even look at models etc... as normal, it irritated me, but had a great time skiing at Falls Creek. The mountains were shut on Tuesday when a thunderstorm rolled over, so there was no skiing for a few hours. We stayed in Benalla last night and it was very windy, and this morning it was pouring down rain there, from about 3am, though eased during the afternoon. The grass down this way at home now is so wet and the cows will probably turn them black again. I am not sure on how much we have had, but I will check tomorrow morning. Our cousins (who live close by) said that we had a ripper thunderstorm this morning, it's a bugger that I missed it.

Regarding the rest of the system, there should be scattered showers extending over the southwest tonight with isolated cold-cored thunderstorms, but some good cg lightning too. Hopeing to get another storm.

Looking the goods again Wed/Thu onwards. Great pattern we have by the way, and my long-term forecast seems to be going ok atm, as I predicted above average temperatures for the rest of the year and average rainfall, leaning towards slightly below average perhaps.

welcome back Jake. What is the snow situation like? I imagine it isnt as good as past years.

Thanks Tony.

Yeah I went last year and it was a fantastic season, one of the best ever, but this year it started off early, but they have not had the persistent cold south to southwesterly winds dumping snowfalls to the mountain. Its all slushy by the time I left, but hopefully they had some today or else the season will soon be over.

That's pretty bad hillybilly. I saw that on the news. I always feel for people that have trees through their houses, it could so easily be any of us up here.

Welcome back Jake Hope your gums are feeling a bit better today Karl

Here's some pics of the big pine trees across the Mt Dandenong Tourist Road between Sassafras and Ferny Creek today

Doing much better thanks Robyn - eating pasta and not soup so stepping up in the world!!!

I am happy to see you Jake. We have missed your observations and forecasts.

Quite a few showers coming along the ranges to the NW of Melbourne so a few more mm for you Andrew and indeed along southern and western VIC.

Also a good deal of lightning continuing down in the SW.

WB Jake, glad to hear you had fun

Goodness, RG, huge tree. No wonder the power was out looking at those pics! I used to live up in Cockatoo and whenever it got windy I'd worry about the trees, I used to hate the drive home in windy weather.

I should add, I got a total of 8.5mm here since 9am.

Well that was unexpected, brief but heavy hail storm came through just now. Hail the size of rice grains, never seen that before, sounded like the roof was being sandblasted.

Why is it that Adelaide get ripper storms but yet we get nothing, well in Melbounre any way

Great photo Robyn. Explains why out power flickered on and off for about 3 hours (reckon we had about 10-20 blackouts/brownouts) during this period. Shame about that tree - was a really pretty one.

Looks like a few showers coming up from the SW for central areas. No more rain overnight in Ferny Creek - so event totals stands at 8.6mm.

Just under 8mm for the event here. Little disappointed that nothing more eventuated early morning, nor does much look like happening today.