"Mini twister tears through Murrumbateman"

erick (Eric) · #1 23-09-2009, 05:09 PM

All OK, Anthony?

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #2 23-09-2009, 05:11 PM

Hope everyone down that way is OK.

stephenb (Stephen) · #3 23-09-2009, 05:16 PM

I hope everyone is okay. Struth, what a wild few days it's been.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...23/2694318.htm

erick (Eric) · #4 23-09-2009, 05:18 PM

Sorry, I should update - it was reported as being last night, not in recent hours. But I still was wondering............

iceman (Mike) · #5 23-09-2009, 05:19 PM

Anthony mentioned it earlier on a distribution list - i'm sure he won't mind me pasting his text here.

Quote:

Last night (Tuesday) I think we had a near miss with a tornado...

At about 9.30pm the wind changed from a strong westerly to a strong
easterly, caught us by surprise and blew a few things around on our back
verandah which is normally protected from the westerly winds. I went
out to clean up and noticed the strong easterly wind, didn't know what
to make of it as the prevailing wind all day had been from the west, and
the clouds were moving rapidly from west to east...

Anyhow, as I cleaned up I could hear a lot of wind noise not far away,
maybe 100m uphill (west) from us. The noise grew louder and louder until
it was just a loud roar. I couldn't see very much since it was dark but
it sounded ferocious. After a few seconds I realised that it wasn't just
another windstorm coming across because it seemed to be moving much too
slowly for that. I called out to Leisa and she came out and had a listen
and then said we should just get inside.... a good plan. The winds
reached us just as I went inside and closed the sliding door, but I
could feel the door shaking and vibrating as the storm went past.

A few seconds later the power went off for a few seconds, came back on
briefly and then went off again. It stayed off for a while after that,
not sure how long but maybe an hour or so.

I half-jokingly said to Leisa that we'd just had a near miss from a
tornado, that's exactly what I'd imagine such an event would sound and
feel like.

We checked her laptop computer which was still running on battery and
showing the radar images from before the power went off - it showed a
large red spot surrounded by orange and yellow in among the other storms
that were coming across. The red spot had just reached us. I've seen
these "supercell" red spots before in previous years, they're almost
always exceptionally violent storms.

After the winds calmed down I went for a drive around some of the local
area to see if anyone had lost a roof or anything, it all looked ok as
far as I could see in the dark, no-one was running around with torches
or anything.

And so .. when we woke up this morning and looked out toward the road
(merryville drive) we saw a blue trampoline, somewhat broken, had
appeared in our front yard overnight. There is no fence damage so I can
only imagine that it landed there after being airborne for some
distance. I have no idea where it came from, but I suspect it dropped
in from some ways off... perhaps someone in Kansas is missing one? I've
checked under it for dead witches, none found.

http://www.acquerra.com.au/trampoline.jpg

Amazing!

erick (Eric) · #6 23-09-2009, 05:37 PM

Phew! Thanks Mike.

I presume he's checked that his scope is still in the back yard!

Blue Skies (Jacquie) · #7 23-09-2009, 09:57 PM

Dead witches aside, how lucky was he to not have that trampoline land on his roof! That's a close call.

Jen · #8 23-09-2009, 10:15 PM

crazy weather

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #9 23-09-2009, 10:30 PM

Again, it coincides with sunspots.
Earthquakes, weird weather.

bird (Anthony Wesley) · #10 23-09-2009, 11:00 PM

Yes, was a close call all round - thanks Mike for posting this on, I'd intended to do it earlier today but work has been too busy...

The owner of the trampoline turns out to live about 150m west of us, and the tornado lifted it clean into the air and sent it our direction. I went out today and checked more closely, the trampoline is made with steel tubing, it would take 2 or 3 people to lift it, it's not light.

Yet it somehow flew through the air about 150m before landing in our front yard about 20m short of the house...

We got off lightly compared to some, there was a fair bit of damage to property in the path of the storm.

The scope is all nicely tucked up and safe :-)

cheers, Bird

Blue Skies (Jacquie) · #11 23-09-2009, 11:00 PM

Of course

it was the blast wind from that comet that was blown up.

(ah, that refers to Jeanette's post above, of course)

AstralTraveller (David) · #12 24-09-2009, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Again, it coincides with sunspots.
Earthquakes, weird weather.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Skies

Of course

it was the blast wind from that comet that was blown up.

(ah, that refers to Jeanette's post above, of course)

Ah ha. So the comet came out of a sunspot and headed straight to Earth. The comet was then blown up 'safely' over nw NSW by the 'small scale' nuclear explosion which generated gale force winds which blew the dust thousands of km, but only to the east. All very logical when you put it together.

Fossil (Jonathan) · #13 24-09-2009, 10:31 AM

There is an article about the weather in today's The Canberra Times. Apparently, the storm that hit Murrumbateman is the same storm that hit Crookwell, north west of Canberra. The article states that the path of the storm can be tracked from Crookwell to Murrumbateman and the damage to whatever was in the path of the storm is quite extensive. My wife and I heard it the other night, as we were outside watching the 'light show', but didn't realise the severity of it until I was driving to work the following morning and saw some of the damage. What surprised me as I was driving through the area was there was no damage, then all of a sudden the road was a mess and trees had been destroyed for a few hundred metres, then it was back to no damage again. It was a very defined path that the storm (which is being described as a 'mini tornado') cut through Murrumbateman.
Fortunately, damage was, as far as I know, restricted to property and no-one was injured.