Victoria - Tropical rain event - February 2nd-8th 2011

[samueliza]

Your forecasts were spot on as usual AV. Now i know why the term "biblical" is used. There is much talk about the SE subs but the western suburbs have copped an absolute drenching also. We are on 120mm since 6.45 pm last night which is unheard of in these parts. As in the outer south east, there are many new houses here in point cook, which are built on extremely low land and the werribee river is gonna cause evn more problems. Will head out later to assess whats happened here. The sanctuary Lakes shopping centre is VERY extensively damaged from what ive heard. Still raining very heavily now!

[Dc449]

Just woke up to thunder and lightning.

[Soxy]

Tin roof in Warrandyte with lazy blocked gutters (gotta get that gutter guard ) 74mm here so far 28mm in last hour.

[mad*moo73]

Morning all. Still raining & the occasional roll of thunder.

[Soxy]

hey guy's I'm no expert but check out the rainfall totals along the Murray from corryong, yarrawonga, echuca,mildura what a huge catchment area cant remember such prolonged rain theres going to be big floods in next couple of days along murray.

[samueliza]

is the rain north of adelaide and near mildura (of which there is still heaps) still likely to head toward us? Or will it fizzle before it gets here- for once im gonna say "i hope so"!

[Anthony Violi]

No Samueliza, the trough that is stalled over us will move in response to being pushed by the upper trough moving across the state today..atm its been stationary since yesterday morning, will start to move after lunch Eastwards.

[Soxy]

Cant wait to check out Yarra river across the road once I can go out should be pumping.

[samueliza]

Thanks AV.

[sago]

Morning Over 100mm now last night was insane. about 50mm in 20 mins. Garden garage and road flooded. Supermarket roof damaged and closed due to flooding. Some roads under a lot of water. How much more will come? stay safe

[Anthony Violi]

Sky is unbeleivable, towers still developing and going strong, wind is from the South on the surface, 400 metres above its NW still.

An amazing occurence, and expecting more heavy rain to develop shortly looking at the sky...

[Pengaz]

One of the most phenomenal events I've witnessed, and last night I managed to drive myself through some of the best of it. Currently at Glen Huntly and it has rained persistently all night, on top of yesterday evenings storms. Based on nearby obs, we could have had anywhere between 60-120mm, the place is saturated and its still Torrential.

Left Benalla around 6pm last night and encountered an intense storm that managed to stretch from Violet Town all the way to Seymour. Then just coming over the hill on the Hume near Craigieburn where you can normally see the CBD skyline, I copped an amazing view of the storms that were flattening Melbourne. I had a fairly obscured view due to driving, but there were a lot of suspect cloud lowerings out towards the Eastern suburbs, and some towards the western edge of the storm line. Janes pictures that she put up on Facebook seem to be very similar to what I saw...

I was driving along Citylink last night when I must have come close to core punching one of the storm cells west of the CBD based on the radar archive. I couldnt see a thing and there were drivers pulling over everywhere while the rest were crawling at 50km/h, easily the heaviest rain Ive had to drive through. Hearing reports on the radio that the Monash Fwy, and St.kilda road was at a standstill due to flash flooding, I jumped off at Flemington Rd and attempted to bypass the city via Victoria Pde and hop across to Kew. Resulted in encountering some heavily flash flooded road particularly near Lygon Street and that resulted in flooding the electrics in my poor car! Stuck at an intersection with the car shuddering horribly near St Vinnies Hospital, I was in the right most lane and pulled a cheeky 3 lane change and luckily found a car park just as it stalled (prob due to excess water in the intake). So I sat like a scared little boy and rang the old man to work out what was wrong with the car (lucky to have an ex-panel beater/mechanic in the family!) while waiting for the rain to stop before attempting to take off again.

Not sure how much my house in Benalla has had so far, local obs suggest 20-40mm. I tipped out 16mm from Thursday nights storms and we had had a further 4mm during the day yesterday before I left last night. Hoping I can get back through tomorrow, the Broken River was spilling quite moderately over the weir in Lake Benalla yesterday arvo.

Am hoping to attempt a drive to Yarragon today to pick up my desktop computer. At this rate theres probably not much point if the southeast suburbs are under water!

[stratospear]

Back-edge bands just hitting here now. Some moderate rain falling and the odd rumble or two.

Not sure what's going to happen as the day progresses and front rips through. Much of the tropical (monsoonal?) band is now to our North and East, but watch for rapid development near Adelaide in coming hours.

Incidentally, the centre of ex-TC Yasi is still alive and kicking over Simpson Desert right now.

[Anthony Violi]

Just starting to line up the catchments and the Eastern yarra Valley...easily could see another 50 - 100mm through here in the next 7 or 8 hours.

So far 90.6mm which is a good catch up, considering we missed all the action initially that demolished the Se and bayside.

Upper trough also starting to show itself now just west of the border.

[Karl Lijnders]

154.8mm and still going.

[adon]

Well we dodged a bullet up here last night as we have only had maybe 30mm. It's still raining but not torrential on anything extreme. Good luck guys and be safe.

[Bellarine]

Be careful out there today everyone - I just drove to a swap meet in Berwick (Cancelled !) and there is flooding on the Monash - that may be closed now, as well as Princes Hwy in Narre Warren. I'm a seasoned driver and these were the worst conditions to drive in - just unrelenting whitehout.

Back at Box Hill Nth now and its just started belting down yet again, back garden is a dirty pool of water....

[dagget]

Well we missed it last night but not from midnight, bit of a direct hit here had hours of torrential rain, got flooded streets and leaking house.

[Anthony Violi]

Well from GFS not having anything for us or SW, they have now turned full circle. They now expect a rainband to form way back west in response to the upper trough, something we mentioned a week ago.

I fully expect it will as i have been suggesting, at least 50mm but more likely higher..

Here it is, much further west in the latest run.

[Sean Mac]

Morning all. Just found my login details after months of lurking.
7.30am reading and we're around 100mm here, while my cousin (a big lurker - hey BT!) in Macclesfield (back of the Dandys) reports 160mm!

Extraordinary event with hours to go one presumes.