Victoria: Tropical rain event - March 19 to 23 2017

[Harley34]

From clear skies yesterday, altocumulus clouds just after midnight and now a band of light-moderate showers, this looks to be a promising system. Satellite imagery looks great, synoptic chart forecasts look solid and we finally have some interesting and possibly severe weather over the next 2 days, about time...

[JasmineStorm]

Clouds tops on the 1st course are approaching-50c north of Melbourne

[Geoff]

Nothing much getting over the ranges here so far, just a few spits. I'll be surprised if we get much here today, tomorrow looks much better.

[Sean]

It's cloudy :/

[Skywalker]

Sure is a quite dull & gloomy out there, warehouse was black as a dogs guts when I walked in at 8am.

First round hitting home now as I type by the looks of the radar. Should be a few mm in it.

Did a last minute clean out of the gutters & downpipe this morning before I left for work, so tank is all ready for re-filling.

[hillybilly]

Starting to get a bit at home now - 0.5mm so far. Is quite heavy to our north with nearly 10mm at Coldstream and a quick ~5mm at Melbourne Ap (and coming down fast), but band is dancing a lot with little cells going up and down so details are hard to make out.

Reading the radar is hard as there is a radar hole running WSW to ENE where the rainfall is running perpendicular to the radar. The doppler can't see rain when it is running at right angles to the radar beam so there is rain falling where the rainband looks to be "disappearing". The rain is moving very much north->south at all levels so the radar hole is pretty stark today.

[StratoBendigo]

Managed 3mm with Round 1.

EC has backed off a bit now. Satpic looks good in central NSW.

[nafets]

EC has wound back quite a bit, however GFS still holding falls around 50mm for areas around the bay. Few mm at home from this rain band. Tomorrow arvo looks good for southern areas.

[hillybilly]

3.3mm at home in FC. Off to a start, but a bit less than I had hoped.

Much better falls in northcentral and west central Vic. Waiting to see what develops in the air behind this thundery rainband.

[JasmineStorm]

A nice 14mm for Sunbury so far in Melbourne’s north and I see EC had Sunbury as 3mm for today …… models do well picking up the event but really struggle on the detail. Mostly 5 to 10mm on the southern side of the range so far. Big fat zero here as it split on the approach but I’m liking the atmosphere .

Brighter towards the NE, some nice earth warming coming up

[stevco123]

Not liking the look of this to be honest. When was the last time we had clear air behind a rainband? I'm downgrading my forecast down to 0.2mm to 2mm for today. Storm chance 20%

Anything that DOES develop will embedded in any rainband that may or may not develop. That lot from NSW looks to possibly bring a fair bit tomorrow morning, but even then I'm going for a wet tuesday morning and fine afternoon (although still on the fence as hard to tell with tropical systems)

But man is this Victoria or Far North QLD? It is sooooo humid.

[Jake Smethurst]

Storm potential was always going to be on whether we can get some clearance or not. Hopefully this does eventuate. Otherwise it's very unstable in particular across the ranges (which is a main focus) so there is potential for development there this afternoon. I'll take a look at models around lunch and do a proper storm forecast.

[hillybilly]

Rainband almost pushed through now. Some bumper falls aleady in West Central areas with some spots past 25mm Not so good out east with only a mm or three in most spots.

Lots of warm sunshine to our north now. Most progs want to develop showers and storms in the coming hours, though EC not keen Guess a case of wait-and-see.

First signs of storms appearing over the northeast ranges and in southern NSW.

[JasmineStorm]

My 2 cents worth on the 11.30am sat pic

[Jake Smethurst]

Latest satellite indicating a large section of clearance across northern Victoria, stretching from the northeast (where storms are currently developing) through the northern country and north central and into the west of the state. Some development appears to be occurring in these areas at the moment, and this region (encompassing the ranges, especially just NE of Melbourne) was always the focus. For Melbourne though, definitely storms likely to develop locally if clear spots appear to increase the lifting mechanism and instability, otherwise, will have to rely on storms developing further north to slowly track southwards across the state/city. Obviously, biggest threat will be flash flooding, but a fair risk of large hail also this afternoon. Lesser risk of damaging winds. Still looking good to me at the moment.

[stevco123]

Starting to hear whispers at work of "oh they stuffed it up again. It's not gonna be as wet today as they said. Wheres the storms?"

I'm still quietly hoping of a downpour later

[Sugarlata]

Hi All,

One thing I've learnt to look for is quickly developing Cu fields from satellite images. This can be seen on the border (very quick development) in the last hour (with about half hour lag).
http://realtime.bsch.com.au/index.html? ... &stop=#nav
I reckon this will be the place we see the good stuff going. Issue will be how they go they coming over the ranges north of the city. Enough moisture around hoping it won't impact too much. Might get some stuff to pop up closer to the city, but the stuff in the Cu field is the stuff to watch. That's my $0.02.

Keep an eye on the Yarrawonga Radar. Next hour or so I'd expect to see some very quick developing storms.

Stay safe all and take lots of photos!

[Skywalker]

Was just outside to check the mailbox, it's so humid out there. If we get cloud clearance it could certainly go off later.

[93ben]

I have a feeling it will flare up in Melbourne. Pretty humid here at work (North Baywln) and the sky is clearing up.

[mick]

I think its all going to struggle to make it over the divide and down to melb.