Big storm coming in

comes in quickly and leaves so quickly –

the SIZE of the raindrops in Civic this afteroon around 4pm was amazing – HUGE dollups (sp?) of water… and yes, agree – that’s how it used to rain in Canberra during spring when I was a wee child.

LOL enjoy your swim

I’m going to the office foyer for a swim before I drive home….

yep we are at drizzle now

Back to light drizzle in Deakin

Only had about 10mins of decent rain here in Ngunnawal. Nothing heavy. The clouds look worse than the rain really is.

Thats my neighbours house LOL i was going to post my house

pre-drought we used to call this normal rain in Canberra too.

my back yard is flooding, if it keeps coming down this hard my back yard is going to be flooded,

HUH? i seem to have missed something, LOL i couldnt find the upload button LOL gunghalin, from your user name i am assuming you live in gunghalin LOL

we are just started to get it now

Today’s storm is much better. Currently pissing down at a great rate of knots in Fyshwick.

I’m not frazzled to a crisp by a rogue lightning bolt yet, Gungahlin Al! You need to wait for the scoop!!

Now THIS is what this Qlder calls rain.

got pics how do i upload?

Of Granny doing her walk in it? 🙂

We wait for Johnboy to badge them and post them. He may be out protecting his ants.

i have sent them off, so i am not sure what happens next, this storm is very impressive
LOL granny

Mrs Neanderthalsis just messaged saying some largish hail at belconnen. Nothing in Barton but some ominous rumbling and green clouds so far.

My colleagues and I left the car park run 2 minutes too late- very impressive over here in Bruce!

Pissing down here at Deakin

doing it now thanks poptop

Send them to images@the-riotact.com

got pics how do i upload?

I am going to walk to the marketplace in it and get soaked and / or struck by lightning. If you drive past a wet bedraggled granny, give me a wave and a honk.

*chuckle*

Gunhgalin is about to be slammed hard by another big storm it is coming across right now
i am going to go get pics

Just rode the motorbike from city to belco, and the sky is black. Looking at the BOM radar I am thinking it might be a good day to go home early from work…

wooo nelly, the radar looks good now.

It’s visible on the 512km rain radar, and starting to edge onto the 256 km radar.

With storms you get localised weather everywhere, and localised totals. I got 13mm from the storms in the early hours.

Teh radar often says it’s raining, and it’s not. It is detecting moisture (echoes, I think it’s called), and often it’s Virga. Virga is where rain is falling, but not reaching the ground. You’ll see it it you look at the clouds; you can see the rain swishing down from the clouds, but you see it tapers off before reaching earth.

Also, sometimes it’s raining, but not showing on the radar.

This morning’s radar and lightning tracker showed the next phase of this weather event (the next trough) advancing into western NSW in a blaze of lightning strikes. We’ve got plenty of moisture, instability, and a catalyst (a trough), so it should get interesting soon.

We might get some light rain later in the afternoon. Just now there is a line approaching, Condobolin, Wagga, Wodonga, Mt Buller, should mosey across the ACT later.

But the important question is – did johnboy’s anthill survive? Are the ants building boats yet?

Agreed, the weather Gods are fickle and the rain measured at the airport is not necessarily what falls in my backyard, inner south. I was given a rain gauge last Christmas, was out there before breakfast to check it…we received 6mm in that predawn downpour. Nice.

Re 12 GB
You ask, “Do you mean the amount it showed falling was more than was actually falling?”
I am saying the radar signature can be in the blues yet you go outside and there is scarcely a drop. I have assumed rain exists high up and is not reaching the ground. I have noticed this all year. In Perth for example this is not so, if the rain radar signature is in the blues you have rain outside.

gunghlin got hit hard last night at about 4am, the storm was that bad it woke my youngest, it pelted down for about 1/2hr, the wind was loud as was the thunder

Nice and wet in Jerrabomberra at the moment…

it’s certainly peltin down now….

Cool photo!

Hopeless fizzer. I put some piccies here:
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=002591;p=11#000159
Includes a couple of shots of this giant tube of rain on top of Canberra, moving NE. That was quite interesting.

This event was originally set to bring substantial rainfalls, and it’s fizzing into isolated storms. More of that tomorrow, rather than the decent rain the BOM first forecast.

welkin31 said :

Ever notice how the Captains Flat radar seems to be poorly tuned for Canberra; always indicates more rain than we get. Only 3.5mm near Harcourt Hill. Most swung north of here.
Headed for ANZ Stadium, suppose they can close the roof.

It’s a conspiracy I tells ya!

In related news, the nation rejoices as Tim Bailey is stabbed to death on national television.

With his latest hair cut I could believe it!

welkin31 said :

Ever notice how the Captains Flat radar seems to be poorly tuned for Canberra; always indicates more rain than we get.

Do you mean the amount it showed falling was more than was actually falling? Or just that it looked like it was going to rain a lot in Canberra (because it was raining a lot in Tumut), but then it veered off and/or faded out?

Best to look at the radar with these guidelines in mind. I find it gives a pretty damn accurate view, except when the rain is very light. And forecasting? Well, that’s what we have forecasters for. They interpret the radar (among other things).

In related news, the nation rejoices as Tim Bailey is stabbed to death on national television.

Bloody short lived 🙁 Dang Canberra rain!

Ever notice how the Captains Flat radar seems to be poorly tuned for Canberra; always indicates more rain than we get. Only 3.5mm near Harcourt Hill. Most swung north of here.
Headed for ANZ Stadium, suppose they can close the roof.

Ripped off again. I hope the catchments benefited.

Bugger… I washed my car this arvo !

Well, the place could do with a wash

Feh – the best of it (the nice dark red bits) is going to slide to the north of most of Canberra by the looks. Probably good, because I’m still not entirely confident of the water-tightness of the roof repairs I recently did 🙂

Hi all, north side is been hit now

The ants are most definitely not quite – trail of them right through my home this arvo. Antkill coming up…

And yes – although the BOM warnings are only for a “general storm warning” the radar tells a v different story – solid cell of black heading right at us!

yeah, the big storm that is headed for canberra is a bit further away (currently over tumut and has many deep red and black spots in it).

So heading home now might be ideal

holy crapola and i was going to ride my bike home. clearly it is time to bunker in at some cosy civic bar and sink a few beers til the storm passes.