Victoria: Low pressure system. March 4th-10th 2010

[Skywalker]

Cloud has disappeared here, bright sunny conditions now. That cell certainly looks great on radar guys. Keep the reports coming in.

[rikjpool]

*sniff* enjoy my storms guys. Haha. Looks ok up here ATM too. Thunder from a cellto my nw. Bout to start bowling for the next 4 hours. So bound to be something special. Haha.

[Nick Sykes]

Vic sat pic looks beautiful with storms going up all over the shop in the highly sheared environment in western vic. Hopefully at 4pm still going off

[I_Love_Storms]

I would expect the severity/number of storms to increase as the day progresses, so should be a good afternoon/evening.

Edit: The way I hope this first cell progresses is straight over the Macedon ranges and intensifying as it crosses and straight into the Eastern suburbs.

I have a feeling it will want to lock into the ranges though, but it is very big so might just keep cruising through.

[Nick Sykes]

Can see the strength of the upper winds in the way the anvils fom the storms are beeb blown far to the SE. Just about to head off with the GF, will hope to get out later, take care all out and about today, these could be nasty storms today.

Take Care

Nick

[droughtbreaker]

Roughly in line with the severe cell, maybe just a little too far east here to score a hit. Looks to be getting quite nasty actually, large hail almost a certainty at the core. Radar shows it up well.

[Instability]

OK guys, trying to find the off button for the MMSS (Melbourne Metropolitan Storm Shield)

I have just one thing to say this weekend..................

Rog.

[I_Love_Storms]

Plugged in the GFS soundings for Melbourne at 1pm...26/18 shows -6.24 LI and 2036 CAPE.

26/18 are the current conditions in Coldstream.

[typhoon29]

gee these cells are very fast moving!! Anvils are making it over cast here black to the very WNW the direction of these cells, Ballarat may be in the path, hmmm will the Anti-Thunderstorm shield work today? Hopefully it'll cover Ballan

[DarkEye]

These storms are small but very fast moving, they'll come hard and fast IMO.

[norfolk]

Ihave been eyeing that cell to the NW for a little while now, meteorogically speaking, I want to know, has it just run out of gas, and could re establish? is it moving into higher land and so therefore being stopped from moving any further, or some other reason.

There are whole line of storms NW of here, I am going to sound positive and say, at least the remnant of one will make it here during the day

[droughtbreaker]

I'd say storms are dying as they leave the most unstable area where the upper levels are coolest, remembering it is not even midday yet. As the afternoon progresses and we get more heating we should start to see storms develop in central areas. Just whether they have much of an effect on Melbourne is still to be seen but I reckon there would certainly be a few decent cells about. It will be mostly later in the day and evening I reckon for central and then again tomorrow morning into the early afternoon. After that hopefully there will be some widespread rain.

Getting some sunny breaks now but scud is abundant out there and putting a big cap on temps, still just 21C. It is a problem we often have that it can be so humid that low level cloud kills off convection at the surface.

[droughtbreaker]

BTW, does anyone have the thunderstorm chart? It is a bit quiet in here this morning, obviously everyone is out chasing.

[James]

i have said this time and time again, remember what you are looking at is not a photograph, its a radar, its a signal bouncing off something...

the land is not totally flat, nor is the radar up really high .... so therefore should anything be in the way or the ground or horizon get in the way...etc, it will but off parts of what the radar can or cant see.

Due to the variable nature of cloud, the atmosphaere and the terrain...there can and often is times where storms appear to dissapear or not even exist but are actually there

when i lived u up in st arnaud we often had huge storms overhead and the lightning tracker and radar showed little or nothing until it got to a different height or terrain where it could bounce the signals back from the radar

so summing up dont take it for real, its just a guide...

[Anthony Violi]

IDV18600
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
Victoria

Fire Weather Briefing for Victoria
Issued at 10:47 am EDT on Saturday 6 March 2010.

Estimates Today:
Wind directions for some locations may be a little different to today's
estimates depending on precisely what time maximum temperature occurs, although
winds will generally be light. Otherwise estimates look reasonable today.

Observational Network Status:
The AWS network appears to be in good working order.

Note that the Laverton radar may not be operational until later this month due
to an unresolved technical issue. The backup radar at Melbourne Airport will be
used until further notice.

Weather Situation:
A low pressure trough over western Victoria is moving slowly eastwards. Another
low pressure system south of the Bight will move over South Australia late
Saturday and will interact with the trough over Victoria during Sunday. The low
will then drift southwards during Monday with a cooler southwesterly airflow to
follow in its wake on Tuesday.

24 Hour Rainfall to 9am:
Widespread showers brought rainfall to every district in the 24 hours to 9am.
Rainfall amounts were highest in north central and northeastern parts of the
state with some heavier falls also recorded in a line from about Ballarat to
Geelong. Rainfall totals in these regions was generally in the range of 15 to
25mm with the highest totals being 64.2mm at Mt Buffalo and 54.6mm at
Rushworth. Flash flooding was reported at Bendigo with 47mm recorded while the
highest rainfall amount in the south was 37.4mm at Geelong airport.

Weather Today:
Local morning fog, mainly in the west. Isolated showers becoming more
widespread during the afternoon and evening with locally heavy falls. Isolated
thunderstorms. Mild to warm and humid with generally light winds.

[norfolk]

almost perfectly clear skies here, quite warm and feels very humid. There are clouds to the south and west and northwest, but here it just feels like a typical humid summers day.

[droughtbreaker]

Interesting V shape with two lines of showers/storms mirroring each other and coming to a point at Castlemaine.

Doppler radar is very good, usually gives an excellent indication as to what is happening out there and in high res.

[Anthony Violi]

THUNDERSTORM FORECAST
Issued at 11:50 am Saturday, 6 March 2010,
Valid until midnight on Saturday, 6 March 2010.
Thunderstorms are likely across most of Victoria today, particularly through western and central parts and about the eastern ranges. Due to high moisture levels, significant wind shear and strong upper level forcing, there is the risk of any thunderstorm becoming severe. Large hail, damaging winds and flash flooding are all possible. The most favoured area for severe thunderstorms is in the 'Severe thunderstorms Likely' area marked, and at 11:45am there was already a severe thunderstorm warning current for some of this area.

[Dez]

Wow I looked north and saw this:

[Anthony Violi]

Theres the latest charts....looks like an awesome event to me..and the one thing that is different about cold air pools is that they go through the night, often giving places a caning with flooding..