From                                           Subject
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001 Ira [jra at upnaway.com]                          a question
002 "Jane ONeill" [cadence at rubix.com.au]           Brisbane cam
003 Michael Bath [mbath at ozemail.com.au]       NSW North Coast Storms 18/12/98
004 steve baynham [bayns at nor.com.au]               gympie
005 "Jimmy Deguara" [jimmyd at ozemail.com.au]        Satellite imagery
006 Sam Barricklow [k5kj at pulse.net]                Maps of Australia
007 "Greg Spencer" [hawk at aisnet.net.au]            Maps of Australia

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001

Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 21:57:02 +0800
From: Ira [jra at upnaway.com]
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; I)
To: aussie-weather at world.std.com
Subject: Re: aussie-weather: a question
Sender: aussie-weather-approval at world.std.com
Reply-To: aussie-weather at world.std.com

ive chased storms that have gone for close to 500K's+


steve baynham wrote:
> 
> hey again,
> whats the average distance a storm travels?
> 
> steve

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002

From: "Jane ONeill" [cadence at rubix.com.au]
To: "Aussie Weather" [aussie-weather at world.std.com]
Subject: aussie-weather: Brisbane cam
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 08:21:02 +1100
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Am I right in suggesting that this cam is now pointing S - SW?? (just so we
can get our bearings)
http://www.eyeonbrisbane.citec.com.au/

Thanks Brisbane,

Jane

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003

X-Sender: mbath at ozemail.com.au
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Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 11:27:13 +1100
To: aussie-weather at world.std.com
From: Michael Bath [mbath at ozemail.com.au]
Subject: aussie-weather: NSW North Coast Storms 18/12/98
Sender: aussie-weather-approval at world.std.com
Reply-To: aussie-weather at world.std.com

Hi All,

Writing this from Ballina on the far north coast of NSW where I arrived
yesterday (20/12) - just 44 hours late to witness the supercell which
devasted towns from Yamba to Lennox Head.

Driving along the Pacific Hwy yesterday, significant tree damaged was
observed from Halfway Creek (between Grafton and Coffs Harbour) all the way
to Ballina (150km in distance). The major areas affected were Tyndale
(south of Maclean), near the turnoff to Yamba at the Clarence River, then
Woodburn, Wardell and into Ballina (other areas do not have many trees so
it is hard to tell what happened there).  Given the size of the trees and
the type of damage, I estimate winds would be in the order of 150km/h or
more to produce the destruction. Although large gum trees can be pushed
over in non-severe winds, the area had been quite dry, so the ground
wetness would not have been a factor in making them easy to fell. Trees
over 1m in diameter had been felled in exposed locations, while in
generally forested areas some large tress were over but many more branches
in the canopy were destroyed. Splitting and twisted (of large) branches as
Paul Mossman observed were widespread especially from Woodburn into Ballina.

Ballina itself copped the storm between 6 and 7pm. 80mm fell in one hour at
my parents place - 30mm with the strong winds and 1cm hail then the rest
following. Ballina Airport approx 4km to the north recorded 90mm.

Photos were taken by my father which I will make available as soon as I
can. Another person I know here has taken many pics including aftermath
damage which will be available as well. My father described the rapid
approach of the cell from the south as a vast system spreading around
towards the SE and E and also around to the SW and W of central Ballina. In
the centre was a barrel structure with gale force northerly winds sprearing
into and swirling up the tower. He indicated the circular structure of the
central part of the storm. Both the eastern and western parts, and the core
came together over town, smashing in with horizontal winds and large hail
nearby. The winds battered from all directions lifting roofing and leveling
trees. Power was knocked out with lines down. Flash flooding soon resulted
as incredible rainfall enveloped the area.
A comment he made was the lack of awareness of people at the river:
swimming and fishing with severe lightning hitting very close by including
in the river. They were oblivious to the looming storm and would have had
to made a rapid escape at some stage. It is surprising no-one was injured.

Fortunately for my parents no damage occurred at their place, but west
Ballina and east Ballina really copped it.

This mornings 'northern star' newspaper has a number of damage photos and
has the heading 'super storm', with comments from Andrew Treloar indicating
it was a supercell. Radar images I saw on Friday afternoon (while still in
Sydney) showed the intense echos of the storm heading NE then track almost
northwards once it reached the Yamba area. I suspect this was the time it
beacame supercellular and started to more left of the 'normal'
environmental flow that day. It covered the distance from Yamba to Ballina
(80 km) in approx 1 hour. As this area is the most eastern in Australia, it
was then out to sea once it passed through Lennox Head (12km north of
Ballina) and clipped Cape Byron. Major damage also occurred at Murwillumbah
(80km north) but this was from another cell a bit later on.

---oooOOOooo---

Lake Cattai (10km south of Port Macqaurie) copped a hailstorm earlier in
the day. At my sisters place hail to 3.5cm (which she kindly saved for me
to photograph!) occurred at 2.45pm. The hail missed Port Macquarie.

regards, Michael
in Ballina for two weeks
*==========================================================*
 Michael Bath  Oakhurst, Sydney   mbath at ozemail.com.au
                 Australian Severe Weather
       http://australiansevereweather.simplenet.com/
*==========================================================*

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004

X-Sender: bayns at nornet.nor.com.au
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Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 15:47:18 +1000
To: aussie-weather at world.std.com
From: steve baynham [bayns at nor.com.au]
Subject: aussie-weather: gympie
Sender: aussie-weather-approval at world.std.com
Reply-To: aussie-weather at world.std.com

coool, heaps of lightning off gympie at the moment according to the
lightning tracker. its been overcast here today after a very hot morning.
was sweating by 10 o'clock just driving in the car. had a very heavy
rainfall about hlaf hour ago. some dark clouds looming:) just rain i suspect.
steve from gold coast

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005

From: "Jimmy Deguara" [jimmyd at ozemail.com.au]
To: [aussie-weather at world.std.com]
Subject: aussie-weather: Satellite imagery
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 18:10:28 +1100
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Due to the following repsonse from the maintainer of the high resolution
imagery site, I must please ask everyone not to send any comments as to
whether it is working or not. I did just that in order to get it going again
and this was the response

....."The page is generated through automatic processes, see text. If it
aint working, it just aint. Please keep in mind that this service is
costing us in CPU and other resources and SHOULD BE costing you
upwards of $120 PER WEEK ? I do what I can when I can to keep it
up but I give you no and have no commitment to maintaining the site
and warn that it may be shut down at anytime without warning.".....

As we don'y want to lose this great resource, I would suggest leave any
comments to myself or Michael Bath and we will communicate it to the
maintainer.

This is the link to the satpics to which I am refering

http://www.marine.csiro.au/~lband/storm/

Thanks

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------
Jimmy Deguara from Schofields
e-mail:  jimmyd at ozemail.com.au
homepage with Michael Bath
http://www.australiansevereweather.simplenet.com/

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006

Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 05:48:56 -0600
From: Sam Barricklow [k5kj at pulse.net]
Organization: SKYWARN
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To: Aussie Weather [aussie-weather at world.std.com]
Subject: aussie-weather: Maps of Australia
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Reply-To: aussie-weather at world.std.com

Could someone please tell me where to find a good detailed map of
Australia via the WWW?  I would like to follow your chase reports, but
need a map to do so.

Thanks,

Sam Barricklow

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007

From: "Greg Spencer" [hawk at aisnet.net.au]
To: [aussie-weather at world.std.com]
Subject: Re: aussie-weather: Maps of Australia
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 21:57:28 +0800
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Hi Sam

Try this site, I'm not sure just how good it is but I know it contains a
full listing of streets within Australia

http://www.whereis.com.au/search.asp

Regards

Greg Spencer


----- Original Message -----
>Could someone please tell me where to find a good detailed map of
>Australia via the WWW?  I would like to follow your chase reports, but
>need a map to do so.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Sam Barricklow