Australia Weather - 2011

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Wow, massive thunderstorm activity in Victoria now. Just been reading the Aussie weather forum. The rain radar shows the line of storms affecting the area! Looks bad with plenty of heavy rain in the forecast over the next 24-36 hours also.
http://www.theaustralianweatherforum.co ... 352#p47352

[Tim S]

Yeah quite a bit of flash flooding in Melbourne overnight and also so more flooding for those poor folk in NW Victoria who only just got flooded a week or two back. Looks like plenty more to come going by radar and sat pics, mostly for Central and Eastern Vic though.

ABC article on the flash flooding that hit Melbourne last night: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 130668.htm

Looking at the http://www.theaustralianweatherforum.com/forum sounds as Mildura is in flood again, can't find news articles on it but it sounds fairly serious, I am sure we'll hear more about it once it gets light over there.
Youtube vid of the flash flooding they got yesterday arvo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqSoMPDQ1Do

[Richard]

Reading there that a rainfall rate of 390mm / hour,amazing

[Manukau heads obs]

partly due to the remains of TC Anthony?

[Michael]

On Skynews they said that this morning though the map didnt show anything after it dissapated

partly due to the remains of TC Anthony?

[Tim S]

Nothing to do with TC Anthony, his remains are east of the NI now and I don't think there's even a cloud left from him. The floods in Vic are due to the interaction between ex-TC Yasi and a strong cold front coming up into the Australian Bight atm. The trough line ahead of this front is feeding directly into the moisture source that was TC Yasi, hence the extremely high rainfall rates and associated carnage.

To give you an idea of how much moisture is streaming down the trough line, the sounding at Woomera this morning was showing 58.6mm of Precipitable Water, that is high for a tropical location, never mind an inland station around 30 degrees south!

If you have a high bandwidth I recommend viewing this link: http://radar.strikeone.net.au/?fuseacti ... teFinish=0
Shows really well the paths of Anthony and Yasi.

[NZstorm]

I have only just noticed the occurrence of this tornado at Karratha WA on Feb21st.

The tornado looks like it was rain wrapped.

Warning some swearing.

[Richard]

wow a wee riper,pity he didnt hold the camera a bit more steady towards the end.

[Manukau heads obs]

pity he didnt hold the camera a bit more steady towards the end.

exactly what I thought!

[jamie]

yea looked like it went right over the right hand end of the pool just before the camera dives away

[Richard]

Like to know what landed in the pool,looked large what ever it was

[Tornado Tim]

Interesting to see SE VIC is getting some elevated storms atm, SFC DP's are quite low around 9°C.
Looking into latest balloon sounding shows a developing favorable environment for elevated storms.

It seems the upper air around 750mb to 700mb has saturated enough to support convection and a due to a upper trough being around that level is making a bit force and lift.

Attached is a skew-t sounding at the Melbourne International Airport (which where the trough isnt and low DP resulting a low CAPE reading...) also a Radar Image courtesy of Weatherzone AU with a SFC DP overlay.