It's not often that this map is full of red like this....
These dots are the BoM hydrology rainfall and river sites and red indicates over 100mm since 9am yesterday... Some of these are actually over 200mm as well
You can see a table of the last 7 days plus the last column is since 9am yesterday in this link
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN60171.html
Explosive development near Appin currently. No warning yet but I would expect one any minute. You can see a boundary interaction (sea breeze front) the key ingredient over Wilton then BOOM. Likely some hail in it too with the black core.
Heading the wrong way to affect here.
Wilton and Picton RFS responding to a grass fire at Wilton at the present too.
Spot the low?
Can't?? - Well, interestingly the charts tell us its off the coast of Ulladulla by a couple hundred km, but radar suggests its just east of Canberra. What is going on?
Well, I am glad you asked!
The surface low is quite board but the centre is off the coast with the low pressure zone extending north to Taree and south to Narooma. What we are seeing on the radar is storms circling around the upper low. Upper lows have more influence on storms as that is there the steering winds are however, surface low pressures (and troughs) give us the initial instability for storms to start developing.
Either way, super cool to see. Image in comment!
For those that do not have the time to watch higher quality YT video, here is an extremely short (8 seconds) manky facebook version of just one of the bolts. Note of scientific interest it had two phases of branched lightning.
We have plenty of whales in our waters at the moment migrating south, some of which are passing quite close to land. This short video was captured from Gerroa. Some longer range south swell in the water as well, however this is now on its last legs and back to short period northeast swell tomorrow.
A timelapse from the stunning supercell last night. Long time since I've seen dynamics like this at play on a storm in the Illawarra. Not quite sure many people realise the damage it could have done if it hung on for another 20 to 30 minutes (it split on the escarpment and weakened shortly after). Beautiful to witness!
DJM Images: Photography by David Metcalf
Not quite as active as last night, but a couple sparks off the coast making for a nice reverse sunset show currently
10 second time-lapse of a very small thunderstorm. Looking towards Gerringong township from Mount Pleasant lookout, Kiama, 10th September 2022
Showers and Storms moving through with the change
The discussed change now well and truly through most of the Illawarra.
There are some interesting convective showers and thunderstorms forming in the northern Illawarra near the converging wind zone which are currently moving over the northern suburbs affecting the areas north of around Bulli.
Whilst these could being heavy rain, thunder and possibly some small hail, they should propagate north quickly as the wind boundary shifts further north.
Further south were stuck in a convective showers behind the change pattern, though rain rates should be less than the far north is currently experiencing.
FYI: expected to be an extended situation for Fire Rescue NSW and NSW RFS at Yallah.
Keep an eye out for waterspouts. Spotted this one just minutes ago from my Kitchen Window in Blackbutt...
Was 2 out there about a minute ago too
Rain periods, possibly heavy at times are approaching from the east in response to a deepening low pressure system. The system is expected to deepen and develop a surface low around the North Coast tomorrow before shifting South to be off Sydney on Tuesday.
The sunny periods mentioned in the forecast haven't eventuated for parts of the Illawarra.
Spoiled by a shower train, rain has been fair consistent and moderate at times here in Blackbutt. A shower train develops when showers etc form in a line parallel to the direction of movement, essentially acting if they're on rails and the next stop is us!
snow snow and more snow
A short video from this mornings magic conditions south of Oberon.
Wollongong Supercell 18.02.2020. Normal speed.
1m44s of the "best" action around 9pm automatically recorded by my Dash Cam. From Flinders looking NE across Blackbutt Forest. Not sped up in any way.
Wollongong Supercell - 4 minutes at 8x speed
My dash cam caught some of the action last night thanks to some of its sensors.
Below is about 4 minutes of captures between the hours of 8:30pm and 9:50pm with a focus around 9pm when the storm was directly North SPED up 8x.
One of the features with this Supercell was not only did it turn left (ENE rather than ESE) but it was slower moving than the earlier and later storms and you can see with this footage, looking NNE as it progresses left to right across the frame in that 1hr20m. Supercells are storms so powerful that they create their own steering in many instances hence the slower and more northerly movement. They can be super hard to predict with their movements too as evidenced last night with several detailed severe warnings in quick succession adjusting the path of this particular storm.
Driving
Earlier this evening on Shellharbour Road... Please drive to the conditions and take notice of the signs... Literally.
I captured this 40 second time lapse video from Cambewarra yesterday afternoon. Looking south towards Nowra.. It shows the intense smoke and heat billowing into a pyro thunderstorm. You can hear the thunder in the video. At the end the southerly rolls in bringing a wave of smoke with it. Soon after day turned into Night.
Pyrocumulonimbis over Nowra
This was near Nowra an hour ago looking at the horrible situation further south. There was lightning near by at this stage. Can't imagine how bad it must be down the coast.
