Crikey it’s wet

[Marty_d]

It was a bit worse than that at ours, Peter.

Didn't last long but it hammered down.

[nomadpete]

7 hours ago, Marty_d said:

It was a bit worse than that at ours, Peter.

Didn't last long but it hammered down.

Glad someone got some good out of it.

 

One thing I miss from Qld, is the pleasure of watching a real thunderstorm come through.

 

Darwin is also (or only) famous for beautiful towering cu-nim thunderstorms.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 07:56 PM by nomadpete

[facthunter]

Darwin has a WET and a DRY season. Not summer and winter. Bit of a challenge getting there (in a plane) sometimes. SPECTACULAR Thunder and lightning in the "wet" season. As well as the Chance of a Cyclone up the NW coast. 

[facthunter]

OME, you should get rain next Monday. Nev

[old man emu]

40 minutes ago, facthunter said:

OME, you should get rain next Monday. Nev

Which fortune-telling meterologist told you that? I won't believe it rained until I see the dampness in the gauge.

[willedoo]

9 hours ago, nomadpete said:

One thing I miss from Qld, is the pleasure of watching a real thunderstorm come through.

Pete, you can have all of our thunderstorms if you want them. I hate the things. Flooding, erosion, power outages and infrastructure damage is all we get from them. Some summers we get hammered by them from October through to April. Half the year we're on almost constant disaster watch. I've had big killer bolts smashing trees 30 metres from the house, and sheet lightning making it's way inside the house with pretty blue streaks flashing around the stainless kitchen sink. I once had a blue bolt arc out between the saucepan I was holding and the stove I was about to put it on.

 

Part of my aversion also relates to the traumatic experience of having our house smashed up in a tornado when I was a little kid. My mother and older siblings had to hold down the legs of the table we were sheltering under. I can remember stuff flying everywhere and getting sucked out where the roof once was. It was a struggle for them to hold the table down, the uplift force was that bad. I was too young to help out, all I could do is sit there and howl. So no, I don't like storms. I think another thing that encourages the sheet lightning is a tin roof. It hits the roof and the metal cyclone rods are only 6" below that and the lightning travels down the rods and arcs on any metal it can find.

[willedoo]

250mm since Sunday night and still raining non stop. It's starting to resemble an ocean down on the floodplain.

[facthunter]

Would I Lie to you, OME?  Being under trees is not a good Place to be either for a Lightning strike.  I've been struck a few times in Aeroplanes.  You need to be in the equivalent of a Faraday Cage, Where it's easier for the Lightning to go around you rather than through you. Nev.

[willedoo]

We're up over the twelve inches for the month so far. A good start to BOM's drier than average spring forecast. In this region their long term seasonal forecasts have been totally opposite to reality for the last three years running. If they say drier than average, expect wetter than average and vice versa. Their day to day forecasts are generally fairly accurate.

[facthunter]

I thought they forecast drenching rain in QLD mainly on the coast.  They don't DO "Air Mass analysis"  as well as they used to. I don't reckon anyone at BOM these days would have been able to Pass the Met exam ATPL pilots had to in the sixties and 70's.   Today, It's mostly about complying with the requirements to hold or carry an Alternate..Nev

[nomadpete]

2 hours ago, willedoo said:

Flooding, erosion, power outages and infrastructure damage is all we get from them.

Sorry to hear of your bad experiences. Sometimes mother nature is a bitch.

But when it comes to most of the resulting damage, blame your state governments.... all flavors if them.

 

Tis a sign of poorly designed infrastructure.

 

Design should allow for unusual but expected natural events.

[facthunter]

Yeah  Blame the gov't for Not doing everything  for you. The More they do the More People expect. What did God give you a BRAIN for? (as my Uncle Reg would say.). And of course WE donna wanna pay the TAX, either.  Choose where you want to Live carefully and you will be better off. Bit like flying. You make your OWN luck.   Nev

[pmccarthy]

Living in Vic I miss real weather.

[willedoo]

The problem with severe thunderstorms is that winds can sometimes go above cyclone ratings in short bursts, so unless you live underground the risk is always there no matter how strong you build. I'm luckier than some. Where I live is a corridor that misses quite a few of the storms. They form out west and travel past Dalby and through the Kilcoy area but when they hit the Blackall Range hinterland they seem to split and go either north or south of here. Those just to the south cop it a lot harder during storm season. Mind you, when we do get hit it's usually a cracker.

 

Measured another 62mm in the last three hours which takes it up to 12.5 inches in the last four days. I feel sorry for the neighbours across the road on the floodplain. They were originally from NSW and bought the place sight unseen. It's one of those places that council should never have allowed to be built. They get flooded out at least five or six times every summer. Another problem is that council lets that area flood on purpose via controlling the canal lock gates, so it can flood with as little as three inches of rain. Down on the coast has had massive development and population growth over the years, so they try to hold the water back in the valley beside my place to give the populated area a chance to drain. Theory is it's better to flood out a dozen people rather than thousands. The biggest rain here in my time was 33 inches in 24 hours in the big 1992 flood. Back in the 1890's my local town recorded 90 inches for January. Average annual rainfall here is 60 inches but it can vary from 30 to 100.

[willedoo]

Where I grew up the average annual rainfall was about 25 inches, so it took a bit to get used to the wet seasons here.

[willedoo]

Finally getting a bit of a break from the rain, just bits of drizzle today. All up since Sunday night 380mm or over 15 inches in the old scale. Photo is the valley flooded below my place, taken from my front yard. The water is up to the neighbour's house which is just across the street from my front gate.

 

[nomadpete]

Crikey I wish it was wet. Today was 30 degrees, under 30% humidity and 30kts wind. Spent the day on the fireground only 10k from home. Rough country. It was blowing hard and gusting, towards our place. There were 5 choppers running water bombing all day. We had 2 x D8 dozers cutting a firebreak but the fire jumped that about the same time as one dozer broke down. The terrain was too steep to get our appliances within striking distance of the fire front. Tonight the wind dropped, the fire slowed down. 

Hoping for drizzle tonight but rain would be real nice. I'm not going out tomorrow (too tired)but there will still be a dozen firetrucks out. So far about 70 hectares still smouldering.

 

 

[willedoo]

Pete, I wish we could give you some. If the forecasts for Saturday and Sunday are right, we'll end up with close to twenty inches for the week. A bit unusual for October, it's more like January, February weather.

[Marty_d]

Just now, nomadpete said:

Crikey I wish it was wet. Today was 30 degrees, under 30% humidity and 30kts wind. Spent the day on the fireground only 10k from home. Rough country. It was blowing hard and gusting, towards our place. There were 5 choppers running water bombing all day. We had 2 x D8 dozers cutting a firebreak but the fire jumped that about the same time as one dozer broke down. The terrain was too steep to get our appliances within striking distance of the fire front. Tonight the wind dropped, the fire slowed down. 

Hoping for drizzle tonight but rain would be real nice. I'm not going out tomorrow (too tired)but there will still be a dozen firetrucks out. So far about 70 hectares still smouldering.

 

 

All the best to you and your better half Peter.  Hope it doesn't get any closer to your place.