The Australian Weather Forum

Yeah if your in the metro area although it might look impressive to your west it ain't where your storms will come from, look NNE guys and this evening possibly ESE . Things getting started in the west and a good amount over the nth mallee which is slightly suprising.

Rhino.

What is out there today is rising higher than the last few days.

It will be one of the hottest Februarys on record. It won't beat Feb 1983 but it will be right up there. Also it must be challenging the hottest summer on record too, Especially for inland areas.

Just in the last 10 minutes or so it is seriously going up to the south along the SE/NE convergence line. It's steadily progressing further inland as well. If it advances over the ranges then it's on for here. Aside from that there is some reasonable convection happening just to the north and east. Before it was seriously falling over but it seems to be getting along a bit now. By far the best stuff is about 10-20km south of here though.

Yeah right Hillybilly, was looking at the last GFS run, 18Z. GFS done a great job though. Things very slowly developing but nothing like the last 2 days so far at least for the west of the state, last 2 days were atomic there. May be all going to happen later but I'm a little "meh" about it now. Hope I'm wrong though.

Rhino.

to me it's looking likely that storms don't want to develop in Melbourne! Saw 2 flashes of lightning on Thursday morning, nothing else happened. Saw two flashes of lightning last night, nothing happened. So I pretty much doubt that Melbourne will get anything tonight. The storms just give up when they reach here for some reason...

yes again i think nothing for out here, unless something comes in from the east, but again it seems to die out before it gets too close

very frustrating for those who want storms unless you are on the ranges where its favoured.

We appear to be under the mist from the storms to the east atm

i am guessing if the last few days are anything to go by, it will all die out from now on as the sun gets lower

Yep S/SE winds too powerful everything is fizzling for most SW districts, never really had a good chance to get a structured formation from the looks of it and now the clouds are breaking down, might be a little different for alpine regions because of extra lift but not betting on it. Give it a day or 2 when that major cloud mass below the bight finally makes it here, a real trigger - if it hits at the right time then we might get what we all want, if not - at least we might get some rain, and that is good enough at this point!

I think the warmer middle and upper levels today as well as decreasing moisture levels have kicked in and it's just not happening today. We were very lucky here to get in the line of the storm on Thursday. It has been enough to rejuvenate the soil moisture a little and put at least a temporary halt to the premature Autumn and general damage to vegetation. The next few days are going to be hot and much drier but then a return to humid easterly winds and the upper levels destabilise again around next Wednesday to Friday. EC actually going for areas of rain over that period. GFS is very bullish for excellent totals. No cool air masses on the cards at all though. It may end up cool thanks to cloud and rain on some of those days but any time spent under clear skies will really get the temp up.

Hands up those who are sick of this incessant heat. We haven't had a decent break inland since December!

Yea gotta say that would be tough inland with this kind of heat, no respite, at least we get bayside/coastal breezes down this way.

On a side note, check out the red re-developing out colac way and over the ranges, I thought it was mostly done for the day, unpredictable these NE flow storm potentials - except when its LA Nina crazy time.

A lucky 7 mm here from that narrow, persistent north-south band just east of Ballarat. Nothing really thundery, just an hour or so of moderate rain.

Yeah these setups are damn frustrating alright. I mentioned in an earlier post that there will be the have's and the have not's in regards to some getting good falls, others bugger all. Setup for the metro areas really couldn't get any worse but some places in the west would have got close to 100mm for the event. Got 16mm all up here and fertilised my lawn just before we got the first storm that delivered 10mm so very happy with that, and a nice green lawn too . Overall good pick up by GFS regarding big falls and probably the only consolation for those in the metro areas is that some guys nth of the ranges and in the west got some much needed rain that they really did need although a nice solid rainband wouldn't have gone astray either .

Rhino.

Three days of thunderstorms and strong gusts of wind all around and we managed to get just 1.5mm rain.Have heard of 25-50 mm in the district Better luck next time i hope.

I was just about to write up a summary of the week for us here and you've more or less said what I was going to Rhino, so I won't bother!
We were lucky to get a few mm's on Thursday morning was it, but we're as dry as toast again now. Still feel uneasy, but at least the winds look like staying on the light side until our next chance of rain next week.

Great minds think alike and all that jazz Geoff.

Rhino.

Done hillybilly

The interesting aspect of this week is that EC is on board as opposed to last week when it pretty much had 0mm for places which picked up the storms. EC is also showing cloud for most of the day on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and relatively cool temperatures given the persistent warm airmass. This indicates to me that we might actually see an area of cloud and rain developing over us (for the inland at least) rather than just isolated to scattered afternoon and evening storms.

There will be a bit of a thundery change on Tuesday and then Tuesday night and Wednesday should be a bit cooler. Wednesday should be pretty stable in the entire western half of the state and also in the south thanks to south easterly flow. Thursday/Friday in my opinion are set up for patchy rain with embedded storms.

BTW, still humid here today. The atmosphere has stabilised completely here today but the sub tropical feel is still there.

I'm a bit surprised atm as I'm seeing Cu congestus going up more enthusiastically than yesterday and earlier in the day. Humidity is perhaps a touch higher today as well. Warm middle levels should kill it though.

Clouds r looking good out west but I agree with Andrew that upper levels should kill any decent storm development. May be Some very isolated stuff on any convergence around the ranges but no mechanism in place to deliver anything decent. Still interested to see what happens, there is definitely lifting and some slight instability.

Drove to unload some of my stuff at Monash Uni yesterday, was hoping I would strike randomly a thunderstorm either on the way or way back home. Was very jealous to hear dad boasting about the pretty good thunderstorm that developed back at home (about two hours before I got home)! He said the rain was rather heavy and some large branches were broken by the odd stronger gust. I had to drive through and passed a few grass fires though that had 'Watch and Act' messages on them, started by the lightning I'd say.

Largely a fine day. The risk of showers/storms is pretty much nothing and as Andrew said most convection will die thanks to the warmer uppers. Very benign risk of the odd rumble about the southwest this afternoon.

Temp here is currently 35 degrees with a DP of 16.

Did anyone by chance see extremely bright bluish flashes of light to Melbourne's NE about 15 mins ago @10:05ish?????? There was about 4 of them and they were not lightning, as it was WAY too bright for lightning not to hear thunder, radar and lightning tracker are both quiet