During Thursday 18 July, a significant rain / storm event crossed through inland NSW and much of Central and Eastern Victoria which is worth reporting. I am not sure where the weather system formed but it appears the storm system developed across Western Central Victoria during the afternoon of 18 July.
Prior to the storm event temperatures across Victoria reached into the low 20s across many areas including Melbourne and considered to be unusually balmy for July.
The storm system passed over Melbourne mid afternoon but it only dropped aproximately 7 mm of rain across the CBD. During this storm event areas north of Melbourne were hit much harder. Embedded thunderstorms boosted rainfall totals in small areas. For example, Mangalore received 27 mm of rain in quite a short period of time and Shepparton had approximately 26 mm.
Looking at weather stations, this system appears to have sustained winds in the order of 50 km/h to 80 km/h (A gust of 80 km/h at Mangalore was recorded by the weather station).
By the time the storm system reached the NE highlands of Victoria rainfall totals were sharply increased and concentrated. The result was a significant melting of the snow cover. At Mt Hotham 73 mm of rain was recorded but the weather station did record winds in excess of 120 km/h earlier. Another intense fall of 82 mm fell at Falls Creek close by and 70 mm fell at nearby Chesthunt. Incredible the system weakened once it hit the alpine areas and large rain shadows occurred in areas to the east.
At the same time, through inland NSW, a number of embedded thunderstorms occurred with this system and by 8 am Friday morning the GPATS lightning tracker had shown some 57,200 lightning strikes / flashes across a band of the state stretching from Lake Hume near Albury all the way towards the north west and Broken Hill. Albury was hit with 34 mm of rain and Thredbo had 62 mm.
Looking at the Border Mail 19/7/2013, a 50 year old woman driving to work is lucky to be alive after she drove into floodwaters near Wodonga. This system did create some minor to moderate flooding on the Kings River and flood warnings were issued for the Mitta Mitta, Ovens and Kiewa Rivers. This was made worse due to the snow melt that had occurred.
Since Friday night significant snowfalls are now replacing the snow lost and Mt Hotham up until 9 am Saturday morning had another 36 mm of precipitation mostly in the form of snow.
Image of the lightning strikes across NSW during the event.
I have added a radar image of the event from the BOM Yarrawonga Radar (Victoria) capturing the event as it encroached into NE Victoria. It was a messy system but where actual thunderstorms passed over towns, rainfall totals were substantially boosted. The greatest conentration of rainfall occurred around Mt Hotham, Falls Creek and Mt Bogong. Couped with the snowmelt, it appears to have caused some localised problems in the river systems leading to some flood warnings.
The system did produce widespread falls of 20 to 30 mm across the Riverina region of NSW but again as it encroached towards the higher regions, rainfall totals increased sharply.
The system made its way to the coast but by the time it reached Sydney, it was much weakened. Only a light rain band occurred between 11 am and 1 pm dropping 1 to 3 mm.
Hey Harley Pearman, thank God I got through before the major rains came through!