| Weatherchase.net |
3rd January 2005 |
| A low pressure trough
deepened dramatically over SA, causing many squally storms over eastern
Eyre Peninsula, Yorke peninsula, the Mid North, Adelaide, and the Mallee.
The low pulled in warm, moist air along the eastern flank of a developing
cold front, with much colder air behind. Parafield Airport recorded a wind
gust of 109km/hr with one storm along with a temperature drop from 33C to
20C in only 5 minutes!
Power was cut to 23,000 properties during the storms. Port Pirie, Port Broughton and the northern suburbs of Adelaide, especially Para Hills, received the worst storm damage, with SES responding to 38 callouts in the Para Hills area alone mostly to deal with trees blown onto properties or blocking roads. The Freeling-Kapunda Road near Kapunda was closed for six hours due to power lines coming down, the Eudunda-Kapunda Road by minor flooding and trees on the road, and the Sturt Highway at Accommodation Hill by flooding. In the wine-growing Eden Valley, 55km NE of Adelaide, a narrow path a few kilometres wide running NW to SE experienced extreme winds, rain and hail around 3.30pm. At Irvine Wines, 3000 merlot vines were severely damaged by hail, while 17 out of 19 rows had support posts torn out of the ground. A shed roof was lifted and an empty water tank blown into the middle of a vineyard. THE BOM now suspect that it could have been a TORNADO as a result of that storm. |
| I was staying at Whyalla on Sunday 2nd January with my parents-in-law. There were signs of the trough approaching as the afternoon went on with a bit of mid level convection to the west and north. By dusk there were storms firing to the north in the vicinity of Woomera so myself and Rick drove out to Iron Knob to see if we could view them and hoping that some would form closer. Unfortunately they didn't get much closer but we could see several flashes along the northern horizon. The photo at left was of the western sky at sunset. |
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Woomera Radar 9.23pm 2/1/05 | Sat pic 11.30pm 2/1/05 | |
| The next day was always going to be interesting. The low was deepening rapidly and with extremely warm temps there were going to be some storms around. The first photo below is of the sky at Whyalla at about 7.30am when the temp was already 30C! I decided that the best place to be for storms was the Mid North so I left Whyalla at 8am and headed back around the gulf. The next 3 photos are of storms already forming over the southern Flinders Ranges. | |||
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| I got around to the other
side of the gulf as storms were firing over the ranges to my east so I
gave Helen a call at Booborowie. She informed me that there was a lot of
build-up around and that they had already scored a nice storm. So I headed
east in her direction and arrived just in time for a nice cell (first 2
photos below) that put out a couple of really impressive clear-air Cgs!!
Along the way I also encountered very low visibility due to dust,
especially in the Crystal Brook region.
After that storm there was an hour or so of convective build up before more storms started to move in from the NW. These were strangely not putting out very many lighting strikes but had some very nice rain shafts and storm structure! |
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| By early afternoon I knew the main action hadn't arrived yet. The trough/wind change hadn't shown its face and even on the satpic it hadn't even formed. Soon enough though, a line of storms 'detonated' on nth Eyre peninsula and moved SW down towards us. These storms had a much lower base and also brought very strong winds, hail, and torrential rain. The last 2 photos above shows the storms approaching while the first photo below was a shot of the first storm as it had passed us. This area actually appeared to be rotating around. After it had passed, a very strange bank of low cloud formed over the nearby hills (2nd photo) before a couple more storms moved through. By 5pm I was making my way home but not before I turned north on the road to Hallett to capture the last storm as it moved away to the East. |
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| 8.22am radar 3/1/05 showing storms around Pt Augusta | 9.13am radar 3/1/05 showing storms in Sth Flinders | Convective outlook | |
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| MSL 10am 3/1/05 | Satpic 11.30am 3/1/05 | Tracker 11.30am 3/1/05 | |
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| 2.22pm radar 3/1/05 line of storms forming | 3.22pm radar 3/1/05 | 4.42pm radar 3/1/05 | |
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| MSL 4pm 3/1/05 | Satpic 2.30pm 3/1/05 | Tracker 3.20pm 3/1/05 | |