Brisbane, Australia - 16th Nov -Severe storm straight line winds

[Michael Thompson]

A nasty long lived storm tore through SE Queensland on the 16th November 2008.

Hundreds of homes unroofed. Winds estimated to be between 100-150kph.

Here are some amateur videos

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=kwbUPNVHrOI

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_tkFfJGN2dA

Storm chaser video,Starts a bit slow, but give it 30-40 seconds
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cVXoRWSqEBQ

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=DUQLgJSFLNE

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=9n0ZGYMIFtA

Lots of photos and radar images at

http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=17;t=000472

http://www.australiasevereweather.com.au/australian_storm_chasing.html

Unfortunately it was all 1100 km from me.

 

[Michael Thompson]

Some huge hail at Blackwater QLD on the same day, probably a supercell. Blackwater is 600 miles NW of Brisbane,

The large hail is 3/4 the way through video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXn0ecc4JY8&

Note that the girl in the video has a US accent ! When she says 'tomato' it is a dead give away.

Damage in Brisbane itself is in $millions, a couple of thousand homes damaged, around 300 severely so.

 

[Robert Rohloff]

Michael, Some nice information and video. What type of severe season do you get, are there many tornado warned storms? I recall some Australian hail storm video showing considerable damage.

 

[jladue]

A friend from the BOM sent me this image from 0640 UTC. This storm fits the type of front-flank HP hurricane hailers that we get here in the US. I haven't heard of the huge hail that we get but the rain rates suggest just as much water was coming out of the storm to match the huge mass flux of water vapor going up in the updraft. No wonder the downbursts were so severe. You can see how big the BWER is in the 5.5 km CAPPI and then the vertical cross section below. You don't get BWERs much bigger.

 

[Gerrit Gulden]

That was a heck of a storm. Really enjoyed those videos. I also found this video http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=050_1227608330 Really shows some major winds. Too bad the storm was soo far away from you Micheal. Really had impressive structure from what I saw on the videos and the hail was radical.

Have you had much luck this stormchasing season out there yet Micheal? I'll go check your website out and see if you have any updates. Happy chasing....

-gerrit

edit- just found out the video referenced is a duplicate from Youtube (one youve linked) but on liveleak. great video...

 

[Adam Lucio]

WOW! What an incredible storm. This video is by far the wildest Ive seen from that day. Especially a couple minutes into it. I would love to be in that storm.



Its always neat to hear about events in other parts of the world. Thats a neat radar image too. 75dbz "tornadocane?"

Makes me hate winter that much more.

 

[Michael Thompson]

Michael, Some nice information and video. What type of severe season do you get, are there many tornado warned storms? I recall some Australian hail storm video showing considerable damage.

Hi Robert

This subject has been covered a couple of times. We rarely get tornadoes, and it is extremely rare to see a tornado warning.

Hail is the major severe storm feature we seem to get, several storms in terms of hail on pat with mid west most seasons, but why they do produce tornadoes - shear that is inadequate, low level moisture issues, lack of cap, it goes on and on.

The season so far has been great for Queensland, but south of around 30S it has been very slow.

 

[Michael Thompson]

Any night owls over there may have a interest in the occasional peak at the Brisbane and Gympie radars, nothing organised yet, but over 3000 CAPE and some half decent mid level winds may form a squall line later today. Not enough turn for supercells and too much mid and high moisture for large hail.

Next 3-4 hours after the post time stamp may become interesting

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR663.loop.shtml

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR083.loop.shtml