Live radar of Melbourne

[DavidU]

This is a beaut !
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR023.loop.shtml#skip

[erick]

No wind worth mentioning at Bundoora??

[AstralTraveller]

Yeah, lots of pretty reds and yellows. It must be fun there at the moment :help:.

[DavidU]

It's great !

[seanliddelow]

We dont have this stuff in Perth

[pgc hunter]

OMG we got pasted down here in Berwick!!! The hail started slamming down in blizzard-like conditions at around 5.30pm,total white out, insane wind gusts, left a carpet of white everywhere, on the ground, on the roofs of houses aswell, looks exactly like snow! Lots of lightning and thunder aswell, with quite a few close strikes :party: Damn I've never seen hail come down like this before :eek:

128km/h wind gusts at Avalon Airport aswell :eek: Jeebus!!!!1

Finally some exciting weather :party:

Never would've guessed it this morning though, with clear skies and calm conditions!

[DavidU]

I enjoyed it. At least there was some action not just constant cloud and some drizzle.

[MrB]

If you mean the RADAR(?)... we do: http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR123.loop.shtml

[seanliddelow]

I mean the weather. All we get is constant drizzle.

[Ric]

The wind is just starting to pick up here as I type. It sounds like a freight train coming over the tops of the trees.

The best wind gust has been 51kph according to the weather station so far.

Cheers

[pgc hunter]

Bass Strait is getting pasted! Must be fun for any ships out there
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDV60801/IDV60801.94949.shtml

And just another charming day at Wilson's Prom ;)
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDV60801/IDV60801.94893.shtml

Still windy here, apparently it's supposed to increase this afternoon.

[pgc hunter]

Maatsyker Island in Tassie is the place to be atm:

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDT60801/IDT60801.94962.shtml

[mozzie]

weather you just cant pick it after 3 floods earlier in the year we havent had rain for near 4 months the ground is starting to go real dry
mozzie

[gman]

This was a photo taken by my wife out of the front door on 25-8-09.
Beautiful Melbourne weather

[mithrandir]

You don't have an exclusive on hail. The storm that dumped this on us did several million dollars damage just 1.5Km away. I have an HD video of hail bouncing off the path and you can hear it hitting the window I'm shooting through.

[pgc hunter]

But it seems you have an exclusive on warmth and clear skies every day this month while we suffer :mad2: :mad2: :mad2: :mad2:

[mithrandir]

The last couple of days, If I'd tried setting up outside my gear would probably be half way to NZ. There were so many leaves in the pool you could almost walk on water.

Before that we had several days of clear blue skies, which within minutes of sunset became total overcast.

Tonight is reasonably clear. Apart from far too much moon and high altitude ice.

[pgc hunter]

Once again, a forecast of sunshine has turned to crap. THat famous insipid Melbourne Cloud is covering teh whole sky, with such ugliness that it makes ones skin crawl and looking at it causes severe nausea bought on by a newly discovered disease called Melbourne Clouditis.

/bang head in brick wall

[DavidU]

mmmmm yep. We can't swear here can we?

[Lumen Miner]

Yeah, that was epic!! My car was out in it, but didn't get done, only thanks to the GF risking herself and putting blankets over it.

Everyone else car on my block got totalled. All smashed out windows, roofs and bonnets caved in.. It came over Thompsons corner and smashed Beecroft. :eyepop:

[pgc hunter]

only if you want to forfeit your forum membership....

To rub the lemon juice into the stab wound, the entire state is covered in Melbourne cloud :mad2:

Tomorrow the forecast says "sunny", although I'm sure it'll cloud up right on sunset as it always does, as the forecast for thursday is already cloudy and ofcourse for the whole week thereafter :rolleyes::rolleyes:

you know it's bad when there is wall to wall cloud and rain forecast during full moon :lol:

[DavidU]

I think I may have to go online and use one of those remote telescopes, it is becoming way to frustrating weather wise.

[pgc hunter]

Maybe we should recruit the inventor of insecticide to invent some Cloudicide.

Melbourne weather is cruel and unusual punishment.

[pgc hunter]

Weeeellll well well, just as I predicted, a whole stack of cloud is tearing into Victoria at supersonic speed, crossing the SA border at 14:30, just in time to reach Melbourne by nightfall :rolleyes: 7Timer backs up my theory, showing full overcast from midnight thru till 22:00 Thursday. :mad2:

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol: woah i could never do that :lol:

[mithrandir]

Last night was a bit cloudy (understatement for the Melburnians) with no wind at ground level. A few thousand metres up was another thing.
This is six stacked frames taken through what was the closest I saw to a hole, each 0.1sec with total elapsed time about 3 seconds. The clouds are aligned, not the Moon or Jupiter.

[MrB]

Aligned on the clouds? Thats pretty cool!

[DavidU]

The moon is so bright tonight I think I need sun screen. At least it's not cloudy.

[pgc hunter]

had lots of stupid ugly drizzle for days now, Melbourne style. :mad2:

Continual overcast for the last several nights now. No wonder I've been smashed for those last several nights.

I hope summer is extremely hot and sunny everyday for months on end, hopefully we get several 40-45C days. I don't want to see any rain or damn cloud for hundreds of days on end. :mad2:

Nothing less will compensate for this hellhole of a winter :mad2: :mad2: :mad2:

IYA2009 = cloudiest year on record (unless ofcourse if you live in Sydney, where its been the sunniest and warmest winter on record as per usual) :mad2: :mad2: :mad2:

[toryglen-boy]

i feel your pain mate, but there are others less fortunate than you. try being an amateur astronomer from the UK, i come from a place where it rains .... 300+ days of the year.

;)

[astronut]

"IYA2009 = cloudiest year on record (unless ofcourse if you live in Sydney, where its been the sunniest and warmest winter on record as per usual) :mad2::mad2: :mad2:"

But Sab..................would you believe that almost all the 3/4 moon and New Moon weekends have ended up cloudy!!:sadeyes::mad2::mad2:
"NOT HAPPY, JAN":lol::lol::lol::lol:

[pgc hunter]

Well here every bloody 1/4, 1/2 3/4 moon full moon and new moon has been cloudy for the last 5-6 months straight :mad2: :mad2:

Wish we had Death Valley's climate, wish it was 45C with NO RAIN and NO CLOUD for months on end

[AstralTraveller]

And yet has less total rain than Sydney - 1200mm vs 760mm. Melbourne is even drier with only 650mm rain per year. Cloud is another matter. For Sydney the number of 'officially' clear days and cloudy days are 103 and 133 respectively while Melbourne is 49 and 179.

[pgc hunter]

The difference is Melbourne gets hundreds of days of insipid ugly drizzle year round, which amounts to next to nothing while Sydney (aka heat,sun and storm capital of the universe) gets its rainfall from heavy showers and thunderstorms :rolleyes:

Melbourne is analogous to Scotland while Sydney is a carbon copy of Tunisia :mad2: :mad2: :mad2:

[Moon]

Thanks for cheering me up.... NOT!

[pgc hunter]

In Melbourne it's cloudy 365^9999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999 days a year

It cant get worse than this, it really cant. Even my grandma from Hungary who was here from December to June noticed the crap overcast weather here.

[pgc hunter]

I'm on my way to a quadruple bypass aswell.

What makes it worse is that this crummy year, Sydney would have a hell of alot more clear skies and us here in Hell would have a hell of alot more cloudy skies.

International Year of Astronomy......I think I'm gonna hurl.

[AstralTraveller]

Some might say it matches the residents .... but I wouldn't be so cruel. :D:D:D

[pgc hunter]

Some might say that the residents' mood are a direct product of the evil insipid drizzly grey british weather here. While people in Sydney and Bribane frolick in Bikinis and shorts in the sunshine, we are stuck in trench coats and hoodies like the grim reaper under lead skies and drizzle :mad2:

Lemon Juice and salt rubbed into flayed skin? This is much worse.

[DavidU]

I can't even get a photo of me & my scope for Omaroos compendium.
It's bloody raining all the time.
I might just have to set it all up in the rain and get a pic with an umberella.
Jeezzzzzz

[pgc hunter]

I am actually lost for 4 letter words here. I'm so over it I cant stand it. I actually avoid looking out the window because it's so disgusting and depressing outside.

I spend most of my days completely smashed, that provides adequete distraction from the slate-grey depression.

[DavidU]

How do you get a vintage telescope????
By buying a new one and wait for the Melbourne weather to clear !!!!!!

[AstralTraveller]

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

[pgc hunter]

:rofl: :bowdown:

[AstralTraveller]

Seriously, that doesn't sound good mate. I'm all for the occassional smashing but not 'most of my days'.

Since I can't observe from home I only ever get two opportunities per month to observe. Weather being what it is I'm lucky if half of the weekends are clear. So I took up a second hobby which is not weather-dependant. In my case I took up bass guitar. I had fiddled with one when I was at school but hadn't touched one for 30 years until about 18 months ago. I'm in a bluegrass 'band' (I use the term loosely) and we have done a couple of gigs. So far I've never had to decide between the band and astronomy but you never know.... :)

[pgc hunter]

I was a bit hasty when I said "most" days, but getting smashed every now and then is mad fun.

I've got a couple of other hobbies aswell but they just get repetative after several thousand years of cloud.

[DavidU]

How it is

[stephenb]

Time to find another hobby?

Seriously, I don't think it's going to clear anytime soon here in good ol' Melbourne.

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol: nice umbrella :rofl:

[stephenb]

C'mon David, anyone would think it rain 24 hours a day in Melbourne. :lol::lol:

I used to have an umbrella with the southern sky printed on the underside, like a planisphere. Came in handy a lot too..

[AstralTraveller]

Hey! Same scope as me - except mine is the goto version. I use it with a Baader Fringekiller and quite like it. Your backyard looks nicer than mine though.

[pgc hunter]

next chance is friday night....with a wind of 50kmh forecast. Wonderful. It Could be for the best though, as seeing is always best when (a) it's windy; and (b) I'm drunk.

7Timer shows promise for 2moro night aswell.

[mithrandir]

Shoot it indoors or on a verandah under cover?

[DavidU]

Thats it......... I'm taking up ironing.

[stephenb]

:lol: I've been ironing all day.

I'm sure Chris will allow you some extra time to take into account our shoddy weather.

Or photoshop the umbrella out of the image, and add a smile to your face :lol: (oh, that's right, Melbourne weather)

[DavidU]

:lol:

[Jen]

Jen passes her ironing over to David :lol::lol::lol:
:whistle:

[pgc hunter]

Drop by and pick up mine aswell :thanx:

Looking promising for tonight, satellite shows all the Melbourne Cloud slowly clearing. Might give it another hour or two before I commit to the "grab n grunt" routine...

[DavidU]

Yeh, it looks like it's clearing ! should I stop ironing yet?
I will strart ironing socks & jocks next:confused2:

[pgc hunter]

It's officially clear now :party: Scope is outside, and the obs list is being prepared :party: :party: :party:


don't worry, Jen can wait :P

[DavidU]

I have tentatively put the scope outside...........

[pgc hunter]

Now's the time, it's d-day, now or never....

tomorrow is already forecasted to be cloudy by sunset with 60km/h winds to boot.

So all you Melbournites get out there now while you still can!

[Jen]

:eyepop: no no dont stop ironing yet :P
You have to do your chores first before you can play :lol:

[DavidU]

Well well, I drove to Johns hill reserve (semi dark site) and it was great !
Seeing was quite good, Jupiter excellent and some nice DSO's.
I wonder what friday night will be like.

[pgc hunter]

Seeing was pretty good for a short period around 9pm, best I've seen in a LONG time. Got some cracking views of Jupiter at nearly 300x. :party: But as the night wore on seeing deteriorated, by 1am it was truly ugly, up there with the worst.

Tonight will likely be garbage.....forecast cloud with 60kmh winds. There is some hope sometime next week.

[DavidU]

It's nice and clear and 14C friday night:)
The only thing is the slight problem of the hurricane force winds:help:
What type of iron do you guys use?

[pgc hunter]

Melbourne reached a max temp of 22.5C at 10:00PM....

Now that the winds have dissappeard, the temp is dropping like a brick.

Although I'm sure Sydney will get well above 30C tomorrow and record much higher nighttime temps going into Sunday as per usual while we go back to typical Melbourne winter :rolleyes: :mad2:

[DavidU]

Sat night, 26C !!! but cloudy and blowing a gale.
Does anyone still use spray on starch when ironing?

[stephenb]

What a strange night. Dob getting buffetted with the wind, so I've packed it in.

No ironing tonight, that's Monday's job. No starch in our household, David

[pgc hunter]

Topped out at 30C today....not bad in Melbourne 12 days out of winter :D

Still 29C at 8:30pm, on par with Darwin!

[DavidU]

The youngest 2 kids asked if I can take them to the snow on sunday:lol:
Now its a heat wave:D

Glen, not even Fabulon?

[pgc hunter]

Forecast is looking promising for next week with Tue, Wed, Fri and Sat all canditates for clear nights :D

I'm excited.

[Spanrz]

I've given up on the weather at the moment, one night it's clear, the next 6 are cloudy (when an event happens..)
And on the clear nights, i'm stuffed from work...haha.

The wind in Melbourne today was ummmm...^%&%$#

[Jen]

:lol::lol: yes i have spray on Starch here :thumbsup: you can borrow it if you like :lol:

[Kevnool]

Does it get any better for you southerners down there.
The only upside to clouds in Melb is the non clouds out west.
Hope it clears up for you down there.
Cheers Kev.

[pgc hunter]

There is no upside to clouds in Melbs :P


looking okay for Tuesday night but with each update of the forecast more and more clouds are bought in :mad2: :mad2:

Monday night might be a goer, the BOM only mentions "showers clearing" so hoping for the best.

Wed and Thu suck, Fri and Sat looking good atm but ofcourse that'll no doubt change by the time we get there :rolleyes:

[mithrandir]

Of course there is. If they are over Melbourne, they are less likely to be over Sydney.:D

[pgc hunter]

beautiful clear morning, but now cloud is increasing left right and centre :mad2:

Hope as heating energy is lost during the late afternoon all this rubbish disappears into fat air.

[DavidU]

At least I got all my eye pieces and the refractor under some UV today to keep mould at bay.

[pgc hunter]

now most of the sky is covered in ugly layer cloud, and Sat pic shows cloud building at an exponential rate, even faster than the weeds in my garden. unbefreakinglievable :mad2:

[DavidU]

The seeing is a bit washy at 8.18pm a bit of jet stream as well. I let the scope cool some more.......

[pgc hunter]

Cloud cleared at around 8:30pm, but seeing looks to be garbage, transparency sucks, high cloud everywhere, to the hell with tonight. What a turn around from the beautiful clear morning, but what else could I expect from this antarctic roaring fourties outpost they call Melbourne :mad2: Days like this remind me how much I hate this climate :mad2:

I'm sure tomorrow night will have some other cloudy surprise in store despite a forecast of sunshine.

If only Melbourne was in the middle of the desert....


.

[pgc hunter]

hating the look of the sky atm, there seems to be a ton of hazy milky crud and high cloud. Shocking. Hoping all this clag takes a hike by nightfall :rolleyes:

just can't win here :mad2:

[Moon]

Skippysky looks good for tonight!

[pgc hunter]

^^ Just had a look at that site, and it shows good transparency and average seeing. But it also shows NO high cloud at 1pm AEST, and 7Timer shows essentially the same thing - no cloud and good transparency but look at the sky :rolleyes:

This ugly high cloud is still here, just wont bugger off.

[DavidU]

The high cloud seems to be dissapating a tad (I hope) on the sat photo it looks like thin high cloud doesn't show up in IR.
The jet stream map shows a small hole comming over

[pgc hunter]

^^ It's on the vis satpic it doesnt show. THe unforecasted high level garbage looks like its trying to clear, but the sky is still full of some sort of haze which is actually brownish toward the horizon. Hopefully it too will dissipate tonight.

Should've gone outside on Sunday nite, beautifully clear at 10pm when i took the garbage out despite how ugly the day was, who would've thunk it...

Yesterday and today are both crap despite the forecast :rolleyes:

[AstralTraveller]

Bushfire smoke?? There was plenty of it up here on Saturday. Driving to my site I can see the Blue Mountains, which were brown.

[pgc hunter]

Could be related to that, on the GFS chart the airmass over us orignated over southern NSW. Are those fires still going though?

Latest forecast suggests good weather on fri sat and sun....

[Spanrz]

I haven't had the scope out for ages....Simply for the cloud issues...And this messy haze. Hmm

Seems we only get a few days now and then in a month of really good clear skies.

I just hope summer brings good clear skies, not smokey haze skies.

[pgc hunter]

Smoke haze in summer is a guarantee.

Oh and there is a brand bloody new patch of high cloud moving in :mad2:
Today is an even bigger cockup than yesterday's shambles :rolleyes:

Listed alphabetically, Here's a list of places which have a better climate than Melbourne:

Everywhere.

[stephenb]

Tonight looks good in Melbourne. A nice mild evening. :astron:

[DavidU]

I got the scope out, Jupiter is going from "swimming" to about reasonable. See how it goes for a few hours

[pgc hunter]

I was out last night - poor transparency and ordinary seeing. Normally I could see the LMC and SMC with naked eye quite plainly, but last night they were virtually out of sight, infact they were easier to see with the last quarter moon above the horizon last time I was out.

Still, got a few good views of Jupiter at 217x, there were a few instances of crisp detail in the belts and I made out a couple of white ovals in the South Temperate Zone. Better viewing than I expected given the conditions.

Transparency was far too poor for galaxies so I concentrated on PNs and globular clusters instead. But by midnight, PNe and GC season was well and truly over with galaxies the real only option so I had to call it quits also you could see high cloud everywhere.

Temp wasn't particularly cold and there was absolutely no dew so thats 2 points for last night.

[pgc hunter]

well weell well the inevitable cockups have reared their ugly heads in the latest forecast, Sat and Sun are now expected to be cloudy :mad2:

Friday is the only hope we have no here in Melbourne, the cloudiest place in the known universe

[Kevnool]

The skies are pristine tonight 170 klms from any city in any direction.
Cobham sheep station far west nsw.

Cheers Kev.

[pgc hunter]

Cloud starting to break up and the sky is a nice vivid blue behind it - none of the silly white hazy stuff :D

[DavidU]

Kewl !
The jetstream map also looks good.

[DavidU]

May I say it looks bloody great @1pm !

[pgc hunter]

Yeah better make the most of it because after tonight it's back to the usual Melbourne wintry cloudy and rainy crap for the foreseeable future.

[DavidU]

Seeing was average until 8pm then comes the high cloud !!!!!!!!! F
Ironing anyone?

[stephenb]

Family night tonight... nothing stands in the way, not even the ironing :lol:

[mithrandir]

Sydney looked great then too. 7pm was really iffy. 7:30 was go home. Didn't even bother to unpack.

Melburnians don't have exclusive ownership of the clouds. They stay away on nights I leave work later or there is a lot of moon. They come when I knock off earlier or there's no moon.

[pgc hunter]

I had the scope out at 4pm cooling, and then I saw high cloud coming in.....I was PO'd like hell, I couldn't believe it. I was about to crack it...then looked at the satpics and it turns out it was a temporary patch.

Sure enough, by around 9.30-10pm, it all cleared off. Seeing was ordinary, but I ended up hunting galaxies all night under some incredible transparency. Even the SMC was plainly visible by direct vision, the LMC bar was just glowing, it was so obvious, I've never seen it that clearly. Even the stars had this vivid glow, the transparency I got was unlike anything else I ever experienced here.

Seeing on the other hand, was awful, I was observing galaxies at high power completely unaware, until I turned to M42 and could barely resolve the trapezium at even 176x! Even at 64x, the stars were mush :eek: Normally at 64x, I can make out the E and F components! I have set a new record for crap seeing!

Worst seeing I ever got, but best transparency!

[DavidU]

Yes it was weird. Today is................

[pgc hunter]

The whole week ahead and likely more is going to be wall to wall cloud and rain :mad2: :mad2:

It's clear here at 2pm but forecast is for stupid rain tonight, typical Melbourne :mad2:

It's no coincidence that the word "melbourne" rhymes with the word "rain".

[mithrandir]

Just to make you Mexicans feel better, about an hour ago we had 10mm of rain and hail in about 5 minutes.

[pgc hunter]

looks half decent outside atm, just not sure about going out just yet as there is cloud on the western horizon. If it is clear in the next couple of hours, I might just get out there.

[DavidU]

I'm out looking at Jupiter, reasonably steady and improving.

[pgc hunter]

wall to wall bloody cloud here :(

Satpic suggests it might clear in the next couple of hours, we'll see. If so, it's one last hurrah before days and days of rain and wintry depression :rolleyes: