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STORMPLANET - Severe Event Reports
Storm Chase!!
May 1st
2004 Snow Chase - Mt Donna Buang, Victoria.
Just want to see the photos?
Go here.
Charts | Snow Photos |
Snow Panorama | The Sunset |
Video |
 A strong cold front moved across Victoria on Saturday May 1st bringing
heavy rain and gales followed by wintery storms and alpine snowfalls.
The heaviest falls to 9am that morning occurred over southern VIC and
TAS and Mt Buller receiving about 17cm of snow up to 5pm EST. I met up
with friend and fellow chaser Andrew McDonald (Macca) in Lilydale at
12.30 p.m. and we took off to Mt Donna Buang in the pursuit of snow and
extreme conditions.
Animated Satellite IR (click
to view)
128K Melbourne Radar Loop (click to view 560kb)
10am Sounding (BOM);
1000hPa thickness & 850hPa Temps & 10am GFS/AVN
Surface Wind Streamlines courtesy
AWN.
Macca and I stopped in
Wandin to observe some powerful updrafts and approaching cell to our SW.
This cell developed a dark base and delivered brief torrential rain and
some small hail followed by heavy rain. We drove to Warburton and headed
up the mountain (Mt Donna Buang).
Following is a selection of
the images taken on the mountain. We were able to park a couple of km
down from the summit and then walked up to the summit. For the first km
or so it snowed and after that we had reasonably pleasant conditions and
no wind. At the summit we even had large areas of blue sky but the cloud
overhead was passing very quickly and it soon darkened and then the
BOOOOM of snow thunder above got our attention, putting it mildly! A few
minutes later there was more thunder, but we didn't see the lightning.
There was a cover of about 8-10cm although the flat grassy area near the
rotunda had more like 12-14cm on it. We experienced graupel settled down
about 600m and the graupel continued to fall down to about 450m.
Summit Panorama
Of course no snow chase is complete without a couple of "this is me"
pics! So here's myself in the first shot and Macca in the second, just
to prove we were there!
On the drive home I noted that the snow on the car took ages to melt,
and was intact at Millgrove. These photos taken at Woori Yallock as
another large cell passed to my NW.
The Sunset
Video
Clip 1 - Wandin
(5.2mb)
Taken from Wandin looking approaching cell from the SW, plus heavy rain
& small hail.
Clip 2 - Mountain
Bound (6.6mb)
Driving up Mt Donna Buang into the snowline.
Clip 3 - The Car
Park (1.9mb)
Lots of white stuff!
Clip 4 - Snow
Driving (5mb)
The drive back down the mountain, a lot more snow on the ground. Note
the snowball bandits by the side of the road and the skids marks on the
left into the wall! Lots of graupel on the drive down the mountain.
Clip 5 -
Crepuscular Glory (1.7mb)
The best Crepuscular Rays (sunrays) I have seen, taken near Wandin.
Thanks to Jane ONeill for sending me the charts shown in
this report. Jane's own report will be linked here shortly. |
T a k i n g A u s t r a l i a b y
S t o r m ! 
