17th December 2005 - Sculptured supercell in Australia

[Jimmy Deguara]

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2005/1217jd22.jpg

Hi,

After a long day chasing with storms during the morning then noon and afternoon period, some very severe cells developed quite rapidly. However, in most cases they were not very long lived. The most impressive cell I was able to get up close and personal was the following:

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2005/1217jd20.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2005/1217jd20.jpg) http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2005/1217jd22.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2005/1217jd22.jpg)

I scored more dents - the second time this season from hail up to about golf ball size.

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2005/1217jd26.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2005/1217jd26.jpg)

The first cell though:

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2005/1217jd07.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2005/1217jd07.jpg)

Some nice front anvil mammatus today:
http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2005/1217jd17.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2005/1217jd17.jpg)

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Bill Hark]

Thanks for the pics and reports. It's so nice to hear of chasers intercepting storms. The current weather in the United States is boring.

Bill Hark

[Jimmy Deguara]

Bill/anyone,

Did you note the RFD notch?

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Andrew Khan]

I did see what I thought to be a dry slot/RFD notch...

[Stuart Robinson]

Nice catch Jimmy - I must get over to Oz one day ...

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

Thanks. When I got the pics uploaded, I likened it to a similar supercell structure Mike Hollingshead had but not as much rotation and certainly nowhere near as great:

http://www.extremeinstability.com/04-6-13.htm

Any thoughts.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Andrea Griffa]

Bill/anyone,

Did you note the RFD notch?

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

Great stuff as usual, Jimmy! :wink:

Yes, it does look like an RFD notch.

[Michael Thompson]

Good catch Jimmy !

I was on a family holiday at Jervis Bay, about 600km ( 350miles ) south of you. The pre frontal trough moved through there at 3am, with some lightning, but coastal junk cloud prevented photos.

At 10am the first convection went up about 60km ( 35 miles ) north and it retreated NE quickly as that bane of New South Wales storm chasers moved through - that is prefrontal - post trough dry NW winds.

By sunset the true front had finally come through - by now some estimated 600-800km behind the trough. The front kicked off some very weak storms on the ranges west, but in the moisture starved surface conditions the storms did not survive past the ranges.

They did however leave a consolation prize - a nice mammatus sunset.




http://ozthunder.com/sunset/171205a.jpg

http://ozthunder.com/sunset/171205b.jpg

http://ozthunder.com/sunset/171205c.jpg

Michael

[Andrew Khan]

Lovely Mammatus Picturess, with nice sun effect! 8)