28Aug00 |
| Above: Surface chart
for 4pm today BoM Below: IR Cloud animation from 10am to 8pm (1pm missing) NPMOC |
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Wintry showers, hail and thunderstorms continued across South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania and spread into NSW and SE Queensland today as an intense low south of Adelaide crossed the South Australian coast near Kangaroo Island. Although it weakened as it moved slowly towards Mildura, the cold upper air it has dragged north with it produced unstable conditions across 5 states.
In South Australia, heavy rain, accompanied by storms and hail, fell in the Adelaide Hills and northward along the Mt Lofty Ranges. Lenswood, 20km east of the Adelaide CBD, recorded 52.4mm in the 24 hours to 9am, while many other locations scored falls between 30 and 45mm (see box below). Rain continued during the day, much of it falling in heavy showers generated by the uplift from air converging into the low. There were some heavy falls in the state's central north, with Blinman, in the Flinders Ranges 180km NNE of Port Augusta, recording 59mm and Willowie, 55km ESE of Port Augusta, recording 55.4mm in the 48 hours to 9am Thursday. Wilpena Pound recorded 87.6mm for the 3 days ended 9am Friday, most or all of which would have fallen in the same two day period.
The cold front and trough ballooning out ahead of the low can be seen in the surface chart (above left) and satellite image (below left). Moist unstable air streaming in under the trough gave heavy rain to the Bass Strait islands. Flinders Island recorded 67mm between midnight and 3pm, while for the 24 hours to 9am, Deal Island recorded 44.8 and, on King Island, the City of Melbourne Bay settlement recorded 68.2 and Naracoopa 65.4. These are close to record-breaking totals: The heaviest one-day August falls in 125 years of record have been 50.8mm on Deal Island and 69.9 at the Flinders Island Airport site. On King Island, where the rainfall record at Currie dates back to 1909, the figure is 69.1mm. Most of the rain missed the Tasmanian mainland, though Pyengana and Upper Esk in the northeast highlands recorded 35.4 and 31mm respectively. Victoria's far east was also clipped by the cloudband. Gabo Island recorded a respectable 29mm from thunderstorms around the middle of the day.
In NSW, the air was cold enough to give a few hours of light snow to higher parts of the Central Tablelands. Oberon reported 1cm on the ground at 9am. In Queensland, a line of storms can be seen in the satellite image developing as the trough arrived on the coast around 6pm. Cape Moreton Lighthouse, 65km NE of Brisbane, recorded 20mm in 20 minutes as the storms passed, developing as they moved out over warm water. An unconfirmed report of a tornado around 3.30pm was received from the Cooroy/Gympie area.