The Australian Weather Forum

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Can definitely vouch for the rain rate in and around Craigieburn, although Mickleham was where I encountered the heaviest rain tonight as well as some unexpectedly strong winds. CG's within 200m while driving through all that made for a challenging drive at times. A little frustrating due to not knowing the area all that well, might have come away with some better shots than the below:

phunkster » Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:18 am wrote:

phunkster wrote:Can definitely vouch for the rain rate in and around Craigieburn, although Mickleham was where I encountered the heaviest rain tonight as well as some unexpectedly strong winds. CG's within 200m while driving through all that made for a challenging drive at times. A little frustrating due to not knowing the area all that well, might have come away with some better shots than the below:

What time were you going through Mickleham? I was up that way tonight.

Rog.

Thanks Phungster - I'd be happy to get those shots Phungster - Well done.
Just checked them out via your link.
Not many night owls araound tonight inspite of the wx.
Gippsland just starting to see some action in the Western end.
Don't know if I will be up when it reaches Sale. If at all. Looks promising for some rain though.

Instability » Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:34 am wrote: What time were you going through Mickleham? I was up that way tonight.

Rog.

I'd say sometime between 11 and 11:30, before that I was parked on Bulla-Diggers Rest Rd for about an hour or so taking happy snaps. Know of any decent vantage points around there?


And thanks OHMegga, I'm happy with the second shot, but would've loved to have had a better view - you wouldn't believe the amount of shots I have of only the smallest amount of lightning visible and not really worth posting...

Nice one, Phunkster. The second shot's a keeper

Light to moderate rain continues here. Looks to be moving much more obviously to the SE now, unlike earlier this evening when it was almost W-E.

Decided tonight I was not going to wait for the storm to come to me, so got in the car and went to it.

Left about 9:30, and just going to fill up petrol saw some amazing crawlers across the west of the city. I ended up heading north through Doncaster, but was getting concerned it was dieing a bit. My aim was to intercept the main core somewhere north of Melbourne.

I did not see much as I headed up through Greensborough and most of the way along the northern ring road, but it started to fire once I hit the Hume. By the time I was heading past the Cooper Street turnoff (between Epping and Roxborough Park) it had started to fire back up. Once I started to get out of the main glow of the suburban lights, the brightness of the lightning was quite intense.

I eventually found a hill near Kilmore and thought it was as good a place as any to get some shots. The problem was that I was about half an hour too late and it was right on top of me. So, on a small, quiet road I set up pointing west in 50knt gusts and tried to get some photos.

This first photo was all in cloud, but it at least gives some visual of the core in the main line. There was a bit of low junk coming in from the north that obscured a lot of the structure through:




This second shot scared the berjesus out of me as it lit the entire sky up. There was a lot of crawlers trailing out to the south of this west-facing shot that are not in frame.



I got one more shot but the thunder was getting quite loud and had the odd crawler going over my head (plus was near the old chaser's friend the power lines ), so decided to get out of there. I headed down south somewhere around Wallan or Beverage to see the hill I was on getting smacked with CG after CG. There was some fat drops of rain coming down at this stage so could not get the camera out.

I thought I would go down towards the airport to see if I could get in a dry spot, travelling down Mickleham road in Mickleham (It would have been about 10:45 Phunkster). Got some heavy rain but not too bad - still enough to keep the camera in the car. Ended up watching the hills north of the airport again get smashed with CG's before trying to outrun the rain front. Ended up in Wattle Glen, where it was all crawlers and power lines again so did not get out.

Ended up running smack-bang into the heaviest rain coming through Eltham, which was not so pleasant, and got home just after midnight having covered over 180km.

Bring on the next one
Rog.

Aljazera - ABC 24 News Just Reported Phillipines Death toll reaches 652, another 900 missing after Tropical Storm in Mindanou on Friday night caused Flash flooding during the night and caught many by surprise whilst sleeping.

Melbourne Sev Thunderstorm Warning Cancelled about 01:30 am.

Rain rates east of Melbourne are dropping significantly if the BoM radar is any indication. Only minimal yellow pixels now.

16mm in 15 minutes? No wonder it was intense!

Was quite a violent core that hit us - the thunder and lightning were great to watch. Not sure if there was any hail in it? The thunder lingered for about one hour after it had passed through.

Cheers, Cam

9mm here, Lightning did get going once changed rooms viewing behind MT D Towers.
Plastic gauge full, think that was 4yr Old gargling and spitting.

Mansfield 35mm since midnight.

31mm here all up so just a solid fall without the real massive falls that were around the district locally so that's good and I hope everyone came out unscathed if they got serious falls. I'd guess will wait until next weekend, 7 day cycle, to get our next decent falls.

Rhino.

42mm for Mount Macedon and it looks like more on the way.

Melbourne city sitting at 799mm ytd

Wow, picked up 28mm from last night's storm. Could hear it coming from about 11:30 which was when the wind completely died, everything was silent and all you could hear was low, booming rumbles. Storm didn't actually hit us until about 12:15 and it was a ripper. High, ripping sonic boom thunder which would then boom out and you could hear it rumbling away into the distance forever. The lightning seemed extra bright too. Very heavy rain. The rain rate must have been something, wish I had a weather station which recorded it. Anyone else in the Croydon area who does?

15mm overnight sure is better than 4mm from last week. We missed the bulk of the storms, kept getting on the edges.

Well that is it for this system, the next one is due around Christmas, nice.

Another 2mm at 11:45pm last night took the system total to 4.8mm. Month to date sits on just 12.6mm. Need only 0.8mm to break 700mm for 2011, which is far short of 2010.

Christmas day looks extremely nice, 34 here, even warmer up where I will be.

Chased (sat on!) a classic supercell for 4 hours in the Ouyen-SwanHill region in Vic, then crossed the border and punched through a HP supercell of truly epic proportions and once on the eastern side........WOW! best chase of the season. I am exhausted.

Brad.

7mm here Overnight which is preety much was I was expecting for my area

Winds will turn more SSW Tonight/Overnight airmass should remain fairly moist so look out for a damp start Tomorrow morning in parts of the South & Melbourne with drizzle patches so Melbourne may just get its 1mm Overnight to take us to the magical 800mm for the Year

Updated all the AWF forecasts etc ... http://www.theaustralianweatherforum.com/main.html

Managed a small 6mm here from that rain event. Very good falls across other areas of the state though, although probably too high of falls in some locations. Terry Ryan from the BoM said Halls Gap had 90mm in just 20 minutes, amazing stuff!! I could see that beast of a storm from here at home, was very large and was overshooting at times.

Compared to the 42mm on Mount Macedon,we received just 19mm here on the farm at the foot of the mount, prob only 3km away as the currawong flys

Event Total= 28mm. Very nice fall to green things up a bit. Amazing totals at some places, the rainfall rates must have high.