Worst Ballina HP supercell 18th Dec 1998

Matt Townsend · Unread post by **Matt Townsend** » Wed 11/10/2006 15:41

I was involved with this serious severe thunderstorm. We had winds over 200km/hr gusts reported at Ballina AWS, hail size as grapefruit and rain went over 100mm in 40mins. Around 6pm, i saw clouds so dark from the south with green lining across the guster. AS it approached, winds picked up over 100km/hr easily, power went out so quick and i heard powerlines snapped and trees were uprooting so quickly. About two mins later, winds getting insane and increasing to high velocity up to 170km/hr with pelting down rainfalls and hailstones. Hail was incredibley huge and it banging everywhere and crashed many objects. As sooner, hail stoped, winds still increasing with zero visability, one min later after i noticed the winds increased; major wind gust picked up around 200km/hr (203km/hr gust at aws) and i saw everything blown away. Trees were shaking so unstable like you have to shake a milkshake! I was so scared and it so unstable, it was flushing cyclonic thunderstorm (damn toilet upstairs always making noises). I believed this was my worst storm ever seen and i think is one of the world's most violent thunderstorm such as like Texas tornadoes.

Next day, news reported a waterspout off the coast here and it scaled F2 on tornado scale. I saw everything were down, big prawn sign were ripped and fell down. I believed that storm made the big sign down like one of hurricanes over US (such as Charley and Katrina)! Natural disaster was declared day after the storm and ABC news reported injuires and fewer animal deaths.

Also ABC news said, if next major La Nina (it has happened in 1998) develops, Ballina would see another storm like this. My predictions are 50:50 and lets see if La Nina going to be strong next year.

Oh What A Storm!

mikestormchaser · Unread post by **mikestormchaser** » Wed 11/10/2006 16:33

hmmmm Im just wondering wat was the purpos of putting a huge article on this matt? It doesnt even say what year it happend. And if it really happend, wheres some photos we can look at.?
Just to add i wouldnt believe that a thunderstorm would put out 203km/h winds

without a tornado reported and a large one at that! so really in my opinion i think its a little strange.

janewaystv · Unread post by **janewaystv** » Wed 11/10/2006 17:00

Here is a article about the severe storm event that Matt was talking about, (from BOM, gives a great detailed summary).

18 December 1998 - Severe Thunderstorms in Northern NSW
Severe thunderstorms affected the Mid-North Coast and Northern Rivers weather districts of NSW during the afternoon of 18 December 1998. The worst damage occurred in Murwillumbah, Ballina, Banora Point and Yamba areas. The maximum recorded wind gust during the event was 122 km/h at Evans Head AWS. Maximum hail sizes reported so far are cricket ball, golf ball, apple and mandarin size. Hail at Evans Head was measured at 5.25cm. Flash flooding and much wind damage has been reported by Storm Spotters in the area.

The storms formed over the ranges of NE NSW in a convergent zone ahead of a cold front advancing northwards on the NSW coast. The low-levels of the atmosphere were very moist and unstable with further destabilisation provided by an approaching upper level trough and jet streak. Several Severe storms occurred in this environment. The damage in Murwillumbah was produced by a separate storm to that which damaged the coastal strip from Yamba to Evans Head, Ballina and Byron Bay.

More than 250 State Emergency Service volunteers worked on the clean-up operations in the Tweed and Clarence Valleys on Saturday. In all there were 354 requests for assistance. The majority of SES assistance was for roofing damage. In the Maclean Shire, 6 houses were unroofed whilst at Murwillumbah, three houses lost their entire roofs and up to 100 others had roof damage. Numerous trees were uprooted and fell across roads and houses. Power had been cut to many parts of the north coast. The Murwillumbah industrial area was badly damaged. At Murwillumbah airport, a light plane was destroyed and three more were damaged. Alstonville police station also suffered serious damage from a fallen tree limb. No injuries were reported.

Manukau heads obs · Wed 11/10/2006 18:51

sounds like a real doozey alright, my kind of storm !

Matt Townsend · Unread post by **Matt Townsend** » Wed 11/10/2006 21:31

I am serious winds whipped up to 200km/hr and it didn't say reported wind for Ballina. Only says Evans Head.

janewaystv · Unread post by **janewaystv** » Wed 11/10/2006 23:39

The report I pasted down from BOM says the offical maximum gust during the event was 122km/hr, Ballina gets mentioned a couple of times re storm damage, but no reference to the 200km/hr gusts, would you have any articles, reports to back up this claim up

, I am sure if Ballina had 200km/hr gusts, it would definitely have been included in the report.

Matt Townsend · Unread post by **Matt Townsend** » Thu 12/10/2006 13:05

I don't know?

I swear it true because everything was so bad. Look i don't have other articles and photos but sorry. I can't walk down and lie to people. I ain't lying. I am mature, ok? It the way i can be. I can't change that, because it good.

Defintely it 200km/hr gusts but mostly 120-180km/hr period the event.

mikestormchaser · Unread post by **mikestormchaser** » Thu 12/10/2006 16:34

Well thats when the whole article is a little strange because Matt you dont have any proof, and as jane said if it was 200km/h they would of said.

janewaystv · Unread post by **janewaystv** » Thu 12/10/2006 20:16

Matt Townsend wrote:I don't know? I swear it true because everything was so bad. Look i don't have other articles and photos but sorry. I can't walk down and lie to people. I ain't lying. I am mature, ok? It the way i can be. I can't change that, because it good.

Defintely it 200km/hr gusts but mostly 120-180km/hr period the event.

Matt, I am not doubting your claims or calling you a liar re you experiencing the storm, I believe you, all Im doubting is the claims of 200km/hr gusts. If it was 200km/hr, then where was the reading taken at? Which AWS was it taken from? Where did you get that from? You get my point, the report is from Bureau of Meterology, they are a very offical reliable source of weather around Australia, have many recording stations all around Australia and do many excellent observations/reports/summaries of various weather topics. If the BOM says during the whole event, the maximum gust was 122km/hr then it is. (Unless you have your own weather recording station which recorded stronger gusts then thats fine/fair enough, but would be termed "unoffical").

I have said enough on this subject.

sw_windbow · Unread post by **sw_windbow** » Thu 12/10/2006 22:17

I was in a massive thunderstorm in Toowoomba in about January or February 2000. The news reports at the time said it was of similar power to their last big one that occured in 1976 and was on either the exact same day of the month, or a day out. It hit one or two suburbs out on the edge of the plateau Toowoomba is built on, and this is a high plateau, almost 1000 metres, and thunderstorms coming from one way crash into it and amplify, and coming from the other way, fall off the edge. This one fell off.

The storm had a green belly. It came overhead and everything was darkening down then the lightning came up and was as flat out as a strobe light on P. Thunder was a constant insane beat like a big diesel locomotive parked on the roof. Then the wind rose and rose and rose and I watched the trees out side bending more and more, then an almighty gust came and smashed the place. A few trees on the property were snapped in half, and big branches and twigs covered the lawn and roof. After that gust the wind died down pretty quickly and the storm moved away.

In the nearby streets trees were all over the place, blocking access, and power lines were down. A street a little way along the ridge had a row of 60 year old trees that werent native to Australia all the way along it on both sides. Many of these giants were pushed over roots and all. The ones on the windward side landed on the street and the ones on the lee side landed on the backyards of adjacent houses. It took two days to saw them all up.

Many giant gum trees came down in the storm and damaged houses and cars and the mayor said she thought everyone should get theirs cut down, and many people did. I watched an arborist drop a 30 metre gum piece by piece on the neighbours lawn. It had come through the thunderstorm's mega-gust with only a couple of broken limbs. In fact almost all of the trees that were blown over were right on the edge of the plateau and I think they were dragged over by wind accelerating downhill.

News articles at the time noted that the storm struck not only on the same calender day ( or next to it ) but caused the most damage to the same area as the big storm 24 years before - right along the edge of the plateau.

Manukau heads obs · Fri 13/10/2006 09:55

yes, wind rushing down a steep hillside can accelerate alot...sort of keeps on tumbling over the top of itself like an avalanche...
you get that effect around here in the steep gullies
and in the marlbough sounds it produces big areas of spray on the water