Storm Chasing - Australian Severe Weather Blog

Hi Jimmy - only a few hours to go now before Imelda and Kimberley will be there - the long wait is almost over ! Does it seem like a year since you first met ?

Weather looks set to become interesting early next week with a cut-off low and trough system to pass fairly slowly across NSW. Indications are for some decent rain over wide areas and some storms too. The cold pool may provide some non-alpine snow if we are lucky. GASP and EC are almost identical this morning with GFS forecasting a slower movement of the low.  Some coastal showers may develop here by tomorrow - just in time for the school holidays.

Michael,

Just under a week to go before the couple arrive onto Australian soil. It still seems like an eternity. I can probably stand waiting more for a tornado than waiting for Imelda and Kim to arrive. Oh well - the time will come. Obviously the few things high on the agenda - getting final wedding stuff under way, getting work for Imelda, Kim to school, and of course drivers licence renewal for Imelda. Yep - going to be a busy period over the next few months.

Coldest morning this year as I type with 0.1C at Richmond this morning. We have had a few frosts this year but none of the snap frozen -3C and  below two mornings. Oh well - July is on its way.

Jimmy

Hi Jimmy - can sympathise with the amount of extra work that you have to do with school. Alison has been working on student reports for the past three weeks. Sure takes a lot of effort. At least you’ll have two weeks off very soon !

How long till Imelda and Kim arrive - must be getting close now?

Weather patterns locally are now quite dull with a typical winter pattern established. The days are very pleasant of course with sunny days, and generally light winds. Quite a different story close to the cold front moving across southern parts of Australia. A number of severe weather and storm warnings are in place for TAS and VIC in particular.

Michael,

Good luck in your new job - I hope it goes well. I can’t believe that New Zealand is taking over a number of contracts from Australia including those in the weather arena. But this is the way things are traversing on the international stage. Outsourcing has made job security vulnerable.

I continue to teach and have just gone through perhaps the worst of term II. I am enjoying it but it can be quite tough to catch up with the paper work and keeping with tasks in hand especially when they are announced often on the go! Nevertheless it is a good school overall.

The weather continues cool but today was rather mild. We had some showers here and there but nothing major of late - just that couple of days of rain which gave a decent soaking last week.

Jimmy

Hi Jimmy,

The Tasman low continues to whip up surf and seas, and produce some strong winds along the coast but little else. The models forecast the system quite well with the cold air and snow confined mainly to the Victorian Alpine area as the front passed through a couple of days ago. Looks like this June will be the first in a long time not to see any snow events in the Central Tablelands. Hopefully patterns will be more interesting in July.

My media monitoring work finished on Friday. All regional contractors have lost their jobs and a large part of the centralised work will now be done by juniors in New Zealand - can you believe that - not India lol. The quality of reporting will be quite poor as the staff will have no local knowledge of spellings and key issues to the region in question.  Fortunately, I am now employed by EWN. The role of the job is still evolving and will involve more travel - so interesting times ahead.

Michael

Michael,

Mild day here today. Yesterday there was some early rain and then it all cleared. Cloud once again increased today. Not sure if rain is coming through overnight. Nevertheless, the rain will clear if it does occur as the cold front nears.

School continues to be busy - probably too busy for my liking - has unnecessarily too much of a work load both on teachers as well as students. The main thing though is that the school is a safe environment.

Jimmy

Hi Jimmy,

Picked up about 150mm from the event last week with about half of that falling on Monday night. Some local flooding occurrred but no big problems. Rodney and I had our first flood watch since that night after officially joining the SES earlier this year. We have been undertaking regional headquarters training for the Richmond Tweed division. We don’t do rescue sort of work, just the planning, communication and monitoring of situations - ie - flood monitoring. I had originally joined the SES back in mid 2003 to do this sort of volunteer work, but the cancer put those plans on hold. The January floods this year got me back into it.

It’s an exciting time for you with Imelda and Kimberley soon to arrive. You will have quite a differnet lifestyle that’s for sure ! Only a few months till the marriage too

Michael

We had some useful falls of rain here and it is still cloudy and cool. Obviously some minor or localised flooding in the regions up north and it is good that for once in a long while, southeast Queensland has had some useful rainfall and the water restrictions may disappear.It was a ridiculous severe drought.

Things are hectic on the work front in between school reports and preparing for Imelda and Kimberly’s arrival. However, at least I can say that the countdown is on. I am so looking forward to their arrival and showing them around and of course just having them here. This is something I am not used to I guess.

Jimmy

Jimmy - the weather patterns over the east of the country continue to suprise with the development of upper troughs and surface patterns showing disregard to the model forecasts :)  The latest output from GFS and LAPS this afternoon has quite different scenarios for the next 48 to 72 hours. At least some parts of inland QLD are receiving some good rainfall today. Will most of the S Qld and NSW coasts receive a downpour of rain in the coming 3 days?  We will have to wait and see. The system has already produced about 65mm here.

Over in WA there was a very active trough system during Saturday. Some very nice rainfalls have occurred but also damage from severe winds.  A repeat of the patterns may occur in 7 days time.

MB

Michael,

The US tornado season in my opinion from a storm chaser’s perspective is below average but the last several days has highlighted the season. It is unusual to get significant events on more than two successive days but it did happen in this period. The number of tornadoes is also reasonably high for late May as prolific tornado producing outbreaks are less common. From a number of deaths perspective, this season has been a killer and not one they would want to remember from a emergency management and educational perspective. Obviously a lot of effort has been directed into education of the public with regards to tornado safety. Many deaths have occurred in the overnight hours but still quite a few fatalities have occurred during the daytime as well.

 Further, the tornadoes have unfortunately made some direct hits to populated areas and that will always significantly increase the likelihood of casualties. This causes great concern as the population particularly in tornado alley increases over time and the cities expand becoming larger targets.

Locally, yes you are correct, some wierd weather with weak thunderstorms although stronger activity off the coast. Apparently there was a nice lightning show off the coast of Sydney last night and early this morning. I have a picture of this event online