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STORMPLANET - Severe Event Reports
Saturday June 19th
2004 Snow Thunder!!!
It was a cold, partly cloudy, and blustery
day across Victoria today. Wind was a fresh to strong west to
southwesterly, which reached gale force near the coast. Highest wind
gusts reported were 71 knots [132 km/hr] at Wilsons Promontory and 58
knots [ 107 km/hr ] at Cape Otway. Brief snow flurries were reported in
the Dandenongs and near Ballarat. Thunderstorms and small hail was also
observed in many areas.
Video - caught on tape while filming, click
below (7.4mb)
Rain was reported from all parts of the state over the past 24 hours.
Amounts varied from around 5 mm in the northwest and in East Gippsland,
to 20 to 30 mm along the west coast, in West Gippsland, and in the
northeast. Some of the heavier falls were 60 mm at Hunters Hill, 53 mm
at Mt Buffalo, 43 mm at Archerton, and 30 mm at Weeaproinah. Showers
occurred in all districts except East Gippsland this afternoon. Amounts
were typically around 5 mm although at Wilsons Promontory 18 mm
was reported.
Overnight minimum temperatures were 2 or 3 degrees below average in the
Western District, but in all other parts of the state they were above
average by a couple of degrees. It reached -5 degrees at Mt Hotham but
away from the alps the lowest was -1 degree at Hunters Hill followed by
zero at Lookout Hill and 1 degree at Weeaproinah..
Maxima were consistently 2 to 4 degrees below average across the state
and were mostly just above 10 degrees. The highest was 14 degrees and
this occurred at Gabo Island, Lakes Entrance, Mallacoota, and Orbost.
In Melbourne the temperature ranged from 7.8 degrees at 7.10 am to 12.0
degrees at 12.30 pm. This was the lowest June maximum temperature since
27 June 2002 when 11.5 was recorded. In the 24 hours to 9 am 1.8
mm of rain fell in the city. There was a further 0.2 mm in the 6 hours
to 3 pm.
(Courtesy
BOM.)
I arrived at the Donna Buang
turnoff, 9km by road from the summit, at around 4.30 p.m. after driving
through sleet, graupel, rain and hail. Even at this elevation (around
600m) the road was covered in hail and snow from earlier, it was very
dark and hail continued to fall. At around 4.45 p.m. when doing some
practice takes in front of the camera, snow thunder was heard soon
followed by a torrent of small hail and some snow. Snow thunder
continued and I was very excited (as you will see) to capture this rare
phenomena on video as I was filming!
Below:
128km Melbourne radar for the afternoon. Click
on the image to animate.
Courtesy BOM
Below:
ALPS
GFS SNOWCAST Analysis; GASP MSLP & thickness; SFC Temps; 850 temp,
wind & height; IR Satellite Loop.
Courtesy
Weatherzone
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T a k i n g A u s t r a l i a b y
S t o r m ! 
