Best posts made by Sinewave1

@Suty

I'm not a fan of the circular icons. I cannot see what they are at a glance. The Icons are meaningless to me. I now have to hover a mouse over them just to get a text popup that tells me what they are. This is not a utilization addition, it's a functional down-grade that makes things slower and more awkward. I'm not going to grow to like this. It just sucks to use it like this. Text back please.

@Sinewave1

Some models show Typhoon Gaemi decaying near to the "Three Gorges Dams" which are currently in persistent flood. This would force all flood gates to open at once. Looking at surrounding pressure systems it can happen.

There will be no easing of the flooding in China - next 10-days

@Suty

Thanks, an example of what's occurring tonight.

The 'Accumulative' sliders in V43 are a big improvement, been wanting that for a long time - thank you.

@idefix37

I don't usually use Access as it produces some odd predictions and its rainfall map is often inconsistent (very optimistic). It's Ok over 2-day periods at higher resolutions but I find the UK version is better for longer periods. ECM has proven itself overtime with rainfall events. I think it's more dependable over 5 days. That said, the situation did move further north tonight because it's a coastal trough rather than discrete tropical storm but it'll drift south again in the morning.

An old lady fell into a drain near a shopping center and disappeared. QLD govt deployed water rescue teams to Townsville tonight to try and prevent these sorts of losses, but the drains are very large and swift-flowing in that area. They were looking for her in the harbor this afternoon as that's where it flows to.

2:15 AM on the 1st of February

The large super-cell near Cairns is still building but drifting SSE, as expected, and bringing the rain and wind back to the Townsville area before dawn.

Radar at 2:10 AM - rain converging again.

Latest ECM Cumulative-Rain next 5-days still looks extreme.

Maximum forecast winds remain below Category-1 so power should remain on.

Dam went up another 5% after the rain eased.

Next 2 to 3 days should be interesting.

415 mm received past 28 hours (after a lull over night).

Rain is supposed to get much heavier the next 2 days. Surprisingly little lightning. Dam rose 20%. Everything is saturated and it's getting quite cool. Had a heatwave before this.

IR satellite: ... tops are decreasing

Rain Radar: ... rain definitely moved back to Townsville area.

Cumulative-Rain (next 4-days): Still looking extreme
.

Cumulative-Wind (next 4-days): ... much windier.

Dam level:

Also: Currently, I have low-level NE onshore showers (that are developing into rain-bands), plus a monsoonal flow around a Low, bringing mid-level showers down from the NNW, over the top of them.

They cross each other at about 90 degrees, and at a similar movement speed.

So the prediction algorithm just spits the difference between them, and predicts they'll all move SSW!

No, none of these showers move SSW! They of course continue on their original headings. So this prediction is quite useless to me, it just averages the NET movement vector, rather than predicting movement and speeds of individual features, based on past movement and speed.

Plus it plays that 'prediction' first, instead of the logged data animation, which is actually predicatively very useful.

It's not a good feature.

Well that was unexpected. Eye-wall kissed the coast within about 1 km of crossing, then went south parallel to it, then looped back eastwards, out to sea again.

You don't see that every day.

https://www.windy.com/-Hurricane-tracker/hurricanes/gaemi?radar,24.199,122.498,8

@Suty

Am I mistaken, or is the prediction algorithm working better in the past few hours?

It seems to be doing a much better job of predicting individual rain feature vectors.

Before it was sending all the features in the same direction, but in this animation sequence I just made it is projecting all the rain features moving in different directions, consistent with their prior logged movement and speed vector.

If so, that's working properly (or at least it's a lot better).

Rapidly regaining core symmetry on radar, before a second attempt to cross.

Open eye is 10.2 km across.
Rain bands are 600 km across.
Cloud-mass is 3,050 km across.

@Suty

I don't mind it staying in the radar animation if it works properly, and does not mess up the end of the animation.

The prediction function appears to be working much better today, compared to how it has been working prior.

Others can test to confirm.

Note that the flickering signal at the bottom of this animation is the Longreach radar operating intermittently.

Next 5-days cumulative rainfall (ECMWF) North Queensland.

Much like the ~1,660 mm in Feb 2019, only this time the rain will fall in about 20% of the time. Ross River dam is already at 104% (reached 233% capacity last time).

This rainfall intensity just looks deranged. Already getting emergency evacuation warnings on the phone to let people know it's coming. The central area in that rainfall contour is over 2 meters of rainfall in 5 days.

It began about 8 hours back so this forecast is real. Should clear up Wednesday next week.

Dam rose 4.5% in 3 hours this afternoon. There's 4 to 5 days of heavier rain to come.

Good news, if you're a duck.

@idefix37

Here's why the rain deflected up the coast, this huge cell dropped the pressure under it. Very tall tops in these thunderstorms.

Update: Sunday 12:00 Noon

Tracking for a >1,500 mm total by Wednesday. Another 800 mm is forecast. We have received somewhere close to 1 meter of rain so far. Hard to tell how much because the wind. Things have got serious today, I hear sirens and an emergency release of water from the dam is set to occur.

Not sure when but everyone is being warned that it's coming. Some time after 12 Noon (hour and 15 mins ago).

Latest Situation

If the forecast further 800 mm of rain falls by Wednesday, the capacity of the dam will rise to more than ~240%. So emergency release flooding of Townsville (as per 2019) now looks unavoidable. Possibly before dark today (in ~6 hours). The dam has been flood spilling since Friday, but the storage still rose 60% since then.

It took 3 weeks to build to this in 2019, but this time it's taken 3 days. I live on the coast and the wind and rain is crazy for the past 24 hours.

Radar:

Wind & Convergence (all ECMWF forecasts below)

Rain Thunder ... that's just nuts

Cumulative Rain to midnight Wednesday ... still looking crazy

Of course there are saltwater crocodiles ... keeps you on your toes.

@idefix37

Yes, got people on edge near the river. Got a break for a few hours this afternoon but rain and wind are back. Dam is ~168% so one night of heavy rain from flood gates having to open 100%. Ultimate holding capacity during a flood peak is 250%, but emergency gate opening will be nearer to 200%.

ECM cumulative-rainfall to Wednesday is still 730 mm to 900 mm. Hoping conditions improve tomorrow as it only has to slow for the spillway to cope.

There are a lot of Lows around. Nothing compelling, but getting the water lower is a priority. Even a tropical low or Cat 1 cyclone in the SE Gulf of Carpentaria is enough to power-up the convergence into this catchment. That's a real possibility.

Cumulative-Rain to Wednesday midnight

Radar

I'm hopeful it'll slowdown tomorrow.

Rain eased but it did not stop. Every 6 to 7 years the weather goes full-retard, and this is that year.

But it keeps it cool.

@Sinewave1

Reports of the ending of the wet season have been a bit optimistic.

Over the past three nights another ~470 mm of cumulative rain fell. (559.4 mm for all of March so far) and another ~300 mm is forecast, which could easily turn out to be another 600 mm, as that has been the trend this year. Just finished scrubbing the walls and doors with bleach, to remove the mold that suddenly grew out of nowhere last month.

Must be a very green continent from space at the moment.