27 January 2013

West Macgregor twister!

| johnboy
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This in from Chris:

Footage has been uploaded to youtube, this was captured at Macgregor, 1810 local time during todays storm. I think it passed just behind the houses and headed out towards the empty fields. The sound was crazy.

twister

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Conan of Cooma said :

Gregsoandso said :

My chase partner and i were slightly caught out of position as we make the call to chase just north of Gunning, but managed to get back to the NE flank of the Canberra storm which proved to be the most spectacular structure wise where we could see all the dynamics at play. We did get into the northern flank of main rain core, and i’ve gotta say i’m not surprised it dumped 60-70mm in some of the northern burbs.

You’ve missed out on some excellent storms down Cooma/Nimmitabel/Bombala way in the last two years.

Yes, and don’t i know it! Due to work or other commitments i’ve had to be content with radar from afar. There was a tornado near Bombala on the 11th of November 2011. There was small right up on it:
http://www.bombalatimes.com.au/story/1103152/bombalas-tornado/
And there was some footage on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CJb4SIeRuI

I chased on the 20th of Jan last year near Bredbo and stayed on a stationary Tornadic supercell for the better part of 90mins which produced a brief tornado out in no-mans land:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyNP6399zm4&list=PLE42D18B120129768

The Monaro corridor as well as the far SE corner has access at times to good wind shear, so storms can be highly organised. Another tornado of note was the one between Nimmitabel & Cooma 23rd December 2008. It was a strong tornado too, doing some significant damage to trees and tracked for around 10kms on the ground from the damage reports i’ve seen.
http://www.blackheathweather.com/generalphotos/tornado23-12-08b.jpg

Another storm chaser also capture a tornado near Gunning a couple years back too…. so you could almost say we’re in a tornado hot spot of sorts.

astrojax said :

is a storm chaser a twitcher of weather?

I guess you could say that. Similar to a bird watcher, you would anticipate where your bird / storm is likely to be – so you just ry and be in the right place at the right time to document it. But storm chasing can be perhaps a touch more of a white knuckle ride:)

Chop71 said :

I think there may have been several other touch down points. Corner of Tyllard and Gininderra Drive (some bigger gums down) and on bottom of Jauncey Court / Bettington Street and along Lohtsky street.

Thanks for that. We have already noted the Tyllard / Gininderra damage which forms the Eastern most point of our path thus far. We will definitely check out Jauncey Court / Bettington as it appears to be inline with our general path that we’ve mapped out already.

A friend lives on Rowland St, Macgregor.

Two wheelie bins started twelve houses up the street and ended up across the road. A neighbour a couple of houses up had their fence fall over, and this happened to his roller door…

is a storm chaser a twitcher of weather?

I think there may have been several other touch down points. Corner of Tyllard and Gininderra Drive (some bigger gums down) and on bottom of Jauncey Court / Bettington Street and along Lohtsky street.

Conan of Cooma10:56 am 30 Jan 13

Gregsoandso said :

My chase partner and i were slightly caught out of position as we make the call to chase just north of Gunning, but managed to get back to the NE flank of the Canberra storm which proved to be the most spectacular structure wise where we could see all the dynamics at play. We did get into the northern flank of main rain core, and i’ve gotta say i’m not surprised it dumped 60-70mm in some of the northern burbs.

You’ve missed out on some excellent storms down Cooma/Nimmitabel/Bombala way in the last two years.

Prose111 said :

It may have touched down in Clendinnen Street through to Waterworth Street in Dunlop. 2 houses (Clendinnen) lost part of their roofs with about 5 other houses with tiles missing. Next door neighbours front colourbond gates (Waterworth) ripped to shreds along with their pergola. This all happened in a very narrow field.

Thanks for that info, we may have a chance to look into it further to see if a secondary satellite tornado formed, which happens quite often around a wall cloud complex.Troy Barrett and myself went out on Monday to map out a preliminary path, but it’s not fully completed as we ran out of light.
We’ll be supplying this information to the Bureau Of Meteorology next week along with a detailed report. So please, any additional info that you can think of would be appreciated.

It may have touched down in Clendinnen Street through to Waterworth Street in Dunlop. 2 houses (Clendinnen) lost part of their roofs with about 5 other houses with tiles missing. Next door neighbours front colourbond gates (Waterworth) ripped to shreds along with their pergola. This all happened in a very narrow field.

Sorry didn’t post replies sooner, mostly been responding on youtube side.

This footage was captured from West Macgregor, looking North towards Dunlop, at 1810 local time. It took some time to form, but once the vortex started to drift down, a secondary vortex of condensation rose from the ground and slowly made its way up, but this is not very clear from the footage. Once there appeared to be touchdown, a debris field formed quickly around the vortex as it headed in a west direction very quickly. The ground side of the vortex tracked far quicker than the cloud side, but a faint tube of condensation could be seen connecting the two ends, bending at fairly large angles. It appeared to track towards the mountains, pretty crazy sound too.

Gregsoandso said :

I think from your footage it can be said with some confidence that it was a weak tornado, if at the very least a gustnado. Thanks for sharing!

If I ever open a burrito joint, I shall call it Gustnado’s.

Or Gutnacho and Gustnado.

A fellow chaser Michael Keene started his day down towards Cooma to get the early action, and then tracked back up towards Canberra for our storm:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IllWcpuAf54&list=UUfIVA3tr_HA75cKvsYylpvw&index=1

I’m waiting on another chaser Michael Thompson to post up his footage who pretty much took the same path we did, getting suckered into the first storms north of Gunning and then having to race back to Canberra.

My chase partner Troy have been sharing notes this morning and i must say that i need to correct the timing of my images – the initial shot that i posted was the larger tornadic cell that produce the tornado in Dunlop. The other images i have posted were we think smaller cells that may have also produced short lived tornadoes from 4:40 & 5:10pm over Holt/Dunlop & Belco, all tracking north to south against the mean steering winds. The larger supercell was at 6:10-6:50pm which starts to make sense. My timestamp is based on SA time as i was over there for work prior to xmas, Troy’s camera is correct, so we’ll go with his for the time being.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Thanks Gregsoandso and mskikey for the fantastic pictures. Looks like West Belco really copped the worst of the storm, especially after seeing the trees down all over the place.

If you don’t mind me asking, where exactly do you think you saw the rotation on the ground, just a street name would be good. I’d like to take a tour and perhaps map out a track path. Here in Higgins i just went for a walk around the Kippax sports ground and found branches and debris strewn in various directions which shows possible turning in a confined area. There may have been more than one tornado on the ground, or the same tornado pulling up and landing again on during it’s life cycle which is common with weak tornadoes.

wildturkeycanoe10:36 am 28 Jan 13

Thanks Gregsoandso and mskikey for the fantastic pictures. Looks like West Belco really copped the worst of the storm, especially after seeing the trees down all over the place.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Gregsoandso – It occurred at the leading edge of the storm front, just before the really strong wind and rain. I could see the rotation in the cloud above before the dust started picking up from the ground. Oddly though, it wasn’t moving with the storm but was traveling across from right to left, if not going back towards the oncoming deluge. Picked up a lot of bin liner style rubbish bags which ended up several hundred metres in the air. A few minutes later I saw the same bags drifting along in the rain and wind over our house and towards Holt.
Glad we have some storm chasers in Canberra, sounds like a buzz.

What you experienced with the direction of the tornado moving in the opposite direction to the movement of the storm is the wall cloud circulating around the larger complex meso-cyclone which is the rotating up-draught.

You have to imagine that the meso is one large carousel that rotates, and within that is a smaller area of rotation that spins around the periphery of that carousel, which is the wall cloud. As the rotation tightens as the pressure drops, (like pulling in your arms on one of those spinning tyre swings), it forms a condensation funnel and lowers to the ground.

This a photo taken from Gundaroo looking back to your location precisely 3 minutes after your footage was taken – My chase partner and i immediately pulled up when we saw the dark wedge protrusion to take a few snaps, knowing that a wall cloud was observed in your area from another chaser who was in your area. It uncannily appears that we caught the funnel in this image.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8468/8421854222_dbae17ef6a_b.jpg

Gregsoandso said :

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8492/8417263484_0929acde36_c.jpg

I’ll post some other footage from some of my chase friends who were on the storm yesterday when it comes to hand.

😀 Sweet! Yes, please!

wildturkeycanoe8:37 am 28 Jan 13

Gregsoandso – It occurred at the leading edge of the storm front, just before the really strong wind and rain. I could see the rotation in the cloud above before the dust started picking up from the ground. Oddly though, it wasn’t moving with the storm but was traveling across from right to left, if not going back towards the oncoming deluge. Picked up a lot of bin liner style rubbish bags which ended up several hundred metres in the air. A few minutes later I saw the same bags drifting along in the rain and wind over our house and towards Holt.
Glad we have some storm chasers in Canberra, sounds like a buzz.

wildturkeycanoe said :

I got the same thing on film too. Just can’t post it up. Scary at the time but looking back at the footage it wasn’t too bad. Link to my video is here – http://s1267.beta.photobucket.com/user/wildturkeycanoe/media/MacTwister_zps8cc2c3ba.mp4.html
If you have a video player with contrast settings, adjust for more contrast and less brightness, it brings the outline of the swirling mass into view much better.

I think from your footage it can be said with some confidence that it was a weak tornado, if at the very least a gustnado. Thanks for sharing!

As my friend gregso&so said great storm set up on Saturday. I sat on the edge of Dunlop & took photos as it came in. At one stage it put down a funnel but didn’t reach tornado phase . It did however have a nice mesocyclone (rotating updraft) & was very photogenic. Definitely a tornado in Macgregor, which I missed seeing as I exited from my position in Dunlop just after 6 pm. Here are photos of the funnel and the meso as it approached Dunlop around 6 pm.

http://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp41/upper_level_disturbance/079_zps7b7a68de.jpg

http://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp41/upper_level_disturbance/086_zpsa8c16f04.jpg

Jethro said :

So….. where exactly was the tornado in that clip?

Touche,that was a claytons twister if ever i saw one.

So….. where exactly was the tornado in that clip?

That’s very interesting footage considering that it appears to correspond to a hook type of signature at precisely 6:10pm on radar archive.

However can i confirm which part of the storm did you capture this? Was it on the front edge of the storm or sorta on the rear or side? This will help identify if it was a tornado or a weaker cousin called a gustnado.

The conditions was ripe for super cells (storms with rotating up draughts) due to strong upper level winds from the NNW, which backed to a ENE at the low level providing ample moist fuel for the storms in the area. Yesterday has been easily the best set up so far to what has been a very disappointing storm season for us storm chasers down this way. Being a saturday, many chasers were out on the hunt yesterday. I wont go into the technical terms, but i can say yesterday was textbook stuff.

The storm was a right mover to the mean steering winds (so it deviates to the upper level winds which usually direct the flow of the weather), which i think was due to the trough line being right over the top of us at the time, acting like a freeway for the storm to move down south instead of SE. I’ll be pouring over all the obs today to see why this storm in particular became a supercell, and not other cells in the area.

I got message from a friend in the Hall area who said that there was a wall cloud, which is the last phase before a funnel is produced.

My chase partner and i were slightly caught out of position as we make the call to chase just north of Gunning, but managed to get back to the NE flank of the Canberra storm which proved to be the most spectacular structure wise where we could see all the dynamics at play. We did get into the northern flank of main rain core, and i’ve gotta say i’m not surprised it dumped 60-70mm in some of the northern burbs.

Here’s one photo i took from the Gundaroo – Murrumbateman rd as we tried to blast west to get a closer look (just put it your browser and hit enter if the link doesn’t work:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8492/8417263484_0929acde36_c.jpg

I’ll post some other footage from some of my chase friends who were on the storm yesterday when it comes to hand.

wildturkeycanoe9:37 am 27 Jan 13

I got the same thing on film too. Just can’t post it up. Scary at the time but looking back at the footage it wasn’t too bad. Link to my video is here – http://s1267.beta.photobucket.com/user/wildturkeycanoe/media/MacTwister_zps8cc2c3ba.mp4.html
If you have a video player with contrast settings, adjust for more contrast and less brightness, it brings the outline of the swirling mass into view much better.

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