Friday, May 30, 2003
Polar Image has some great photos of atmospheric phenomena like auroras, noctilucent clouds and halos.
Posted by rhettly @ 10:35 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Posted by rhettly @ 09:47 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Posted by rhettly @ 10:01 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Yes - raining again!
Posted by rhettly @ 10:37 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Monday, May 26, 2003
Re-validated the site to XHTML after implementing grey matter weblog/journal software on the site.
Images continue to be a problem as the default tags created are far from being XHTML (upper case, no closing tags). Seems like a search through the cgi to find where it is coming from is in order - Perl manual anyone?
Posted by rhettly @ 10:25 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
We finally got the domain for the Australian Severe Weather site transfered. Everything seems to be work well now.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2003
While there was some bad reporting on the Bendigo event there was also some good reporting, the Age in particular had some really great articles that included an explanation of the Fujita Scale and some excellent eyewitness accounts.
Some good photos and links to resources relating to this event are at the Australian Sky & Weather (Melbourne Storm Chasers) site.
Posted by rhettly @ 10:18 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Monday, May 19, 2003
Bendigo was hit by a probable F1-F2 tornado last night demolishing many homes and causing millions of dollars damage. Thankfully no one was seriously injured.
The media have been all over it, but as usual the dreaded "mini" word has been applied to this event by some media outlets. This is unfortunate, giving the impression that Australian tornados are somehow less serious than the American equivalent. While Tornados may not occur as frequently in Australia, tornados (and thats what they are) have the potential to do the same serious damage as they do in the US. More on this topic on the weatherzone forum.
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Spent the last few days sorting out new hosting for the Australian Severe Weather Association website as the existing host, featureprice, is going belly up. We've got the whole site copied over to the new host hostrocket.com and the database going again. Hostrocket's service has been very impressive with almost immediate account set up and a really user friendly control panel. We just need to sort out the domain transfer - the site is available on a less than friendly URL in the interim.
Posted by rhettly @ 10:19 PM EST [Link] no comments
Friday, May 16, 2003
Anthony Cornelius has created a great new Thunderstorm Forecasting Guide which is a terrific resource for anyone wanting to get a better understanding of storm forecasting (best of all from an Australian perspective). It includes many great explanatory diagrams and case studies, Anthony has a real knack for explaining the complex in easily understood terms. I think we will all be referring to this for many years to come.
Posted by rhettly @ 11:19 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
A low pressure system has formed off Newcastle bringing further falls to the NSW coast. The BOM has issued a flood watch for the Hunter and Illawarra.
In the West of the state falls of up to 50mm in the Wilcannia area have closed several roads.
Posted by rhettly @ 10:49 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Thursday, May 15, 2003
The Commonwealth government has committed $62.2 million in the Budget to upgrade the weather radar network. Doppler radars will be installed at Sydney, Tamworth, Melbourne, Yarrawonga, Brisbane and Adelaide, while replacements radars will be installed at Learmonth, Port Hedland, Broome, Perth, Carnarvon, Mt Gambier, East Sale, Williamtown, Townsville, Mackay, Gladstone, Mt Kanighan, Charleville, Darwin, and Tennant Creek. Doppler radar improves the ability of forecasters to detect severe weather such as hail, damaging wind gusts and tornadoes. The prospect of better radar coverage has been welcomed with some excitement in the weather community, although debate continues on the suitability of the sites chosen.
Posted by rhettly @ 10:01 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
The Northern Daily Leader reported today that the damage to infrastructure as a result of the Somerton Severe storm on Christmas Day 2002 was around $250,000. The NSW government has declared the event a natural disaster and will provide assistance to Parry Shire Council for the repairs.
Posted by rhettly @ 09:34 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
More rain on the NSW East Coast today. Heaviest falls again were in the Illawarra. Wollongong scoring 119mm to 9am and a further 46.mm after 9am (as at 9.30pm 14/5). Heavy falls have spread North into Northern NSW and Southern QLD, with 26.4mm at Cape Byron and 108.8mm at Cape Moreton since 9am.Very little rain has fallen in the Northern Inland, the top reading to 9am was 11mm at Ashford, 0.2 mm fell at Moree and Armidale over the same period.
Posted by rhettly @ 09:24 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Going through the photos we took on our trip to New Zealand and found some photos I took at Kingsford Smith even before we took off. The trek from the long term car park in gusty showers had left us and our luggage completely soaked. Still drying out at the gate an hour later the Sun suddenly broke through the low scud blowing across Botany Bay and a fantastic rainbow appeared as a Qantas 747 was taxing out to the runway.
Posted by rhettly @ 10:10 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Its certainly been a rainy day in Sydney - flash flooding, bad traffic, people rescued from the rooves of their cars by helicopter! A deep trough off the NSW coast brought heavy showers throughout the day. The top falls to 9am were North of Sydney with 107mm at Gosford and 60mm at Berowra. After 9am the falls were heaviest to the South of the city, many areas recording between 50 and 100mm - and its still raining. With the potential for a low developing of the coast in the next few days, it shaping to be a very wet week.
Posted by rhettly @ 09:23 PM EST [Link] 1 comment
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Just back from a week in NZ. We drove 2000km around the South Island in 7 days! The scenery is unbelievable, the food was excellent and the weather cool but fine (what's with that departure tax??). We want to go back soon.
I also took some nice photos of sunrise as we flew back over the Tasman on Saturday morning.
Posted by Alice @ 08:59 PM EST [Link] no comments