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Seasonal heavy rain, including falls from ex-TC Raymond, continued
across the tropics. Details are in the Wettest and Downpours sections.
 Ex-TC
Raymond brings heavy rain, flooding to NT
The remains of the cloudmass generated by Cyclone Raymond split in two yesterday,
with one section moving SE over the southern NT and the second hovering around
the northwest of the Top End. The heaviest falls were in the Daly River catchment
to the south of Darwin where Mango Farm recorded 195.2mm for the 24 hours to
9am, a new January record. All except 17mm of that fell after 6pm yesterday.
A flood network gauge on Mount Nancar, about 20km SE of Mango Farm, recorded
218mm in the same period. Despite the heavy rain, only isolated minor and local
flooding was reported from the Daly and Adelaide River catchments because they
are relatively dry at the beginning of the wet season. During the morning,
the area of heavy rain moved north, brushing past Cape Fawcett on the western
tip of Bathurst Island and dumping 143.0mm between 12.30 and 2.30pm.
The second peak rainfall area on the rain map at right occurred to the north
and northeast of Alice Springs from the southern cloudmass. Jervois, 250km
ENE of the Alice, recorded its highest January daily total in nearly 40 years
with 82.0mm in the gauge at 9am, 72mm of which fell in the 6 hours before 9am.
Mount Skinner, 180km north of the Alice recorded 118.6mm to 9am. The heavy
rain reached across the border into the QLD Channel Country, where Boulia reported
56mm in the 6 hours to 3am in a thunderstorm.
VIC
and NSW storms cause damage and a bushfire
The broad area of thunderstorms that caused disruption and damage in SA yesterday moved
slowly across western and central VIC overnight and this morning, bringing
some heavy falls and widespread and prolonged electrical activity. The 989hPa
surface low responsible for the storms moved east through Bass Strait during
the day, supported by a strong upper low and a small but sharp upper trough
extending northwards across VIC and into southern NSW. Strong wind shear along
this trough, supported by widespread vorticity around the low, caused storms
to redevelop over NE VIC around 10am and move northeast while progressively
developing to the northwest along the line of the cold front shown on the 4pm
surface chart. Some of these storms became severe. Thredbo Top Station
recorded a wind gust of 128km/h at 1.20pm and some intense rainfall: 7.6mm
in 3 minutes to 1.59pm and 9.4mm in 11 minutes shortly afterwards. Bombala
AWS reported a gust of 115km/h and Point Wilson, just east of Geelong, 113km/h.
See below for other strong gusts and heavy rain.
In Central Western NSW during the late afternoon, a house roof was ripped
off in Forbes, where SES also responded to 12 calls for damage inflicted by
fallen trees. Part of the town was blacked out. At Daroobalgie, 10km NE of
Forbes, a farmhouse was unroofed and a semi-trailer blown onto its side. A
house was also unroofed at Bogan Gate, 35km NW of Forbes.
Farther south, the Albury area received both flood and fire from the storms.
Eight shops were damaged by flooding or roof leaks in Albury CBD, while a major
fire was started by lightning at Goombargana Hill, 35km NW of the city. The
fire burnt to within 50m of a critical communications complex on the hill that
provides services to the Rural Fire Service, police, ambulance, Country Energy
and Telstra. Eighty firefighters, 3 aircraft and 20 appliances fought the blaze,
which began about 11.40am and burnt through 200ha before being contained late
afternoon. Lightning also started two fires that burnt through 8ha in the Woolshed
Valley 40km SW of Albury and just NW of Beechworth, VIC.
A thunderstorm around 4pm damaged trees along the beach at Pambula Beach and
brought down a large limb on a Toyota Landcruiser in the town. Lightning from
the same storm struck a tree or flagpole next to the Tourist Information Centre
at Merimbula, 5km north, causing $10,000 damage to IT facilities. |
