IOP1 | October 13. | Significant coastal convection and a Hector (~330-700). The storms over the mainland were moving westward which is unexpected, but probably related to sea breeze propagation (without looking at AWS data to confirm). |
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| October14. | A few shallow coastal storms early (late on the 13th) with a Hector at ~0200-0600. The remains of a squall line moved into the Darwin area around 0920 and an extensive area of reflectivity is seen through the rest of the day, but this was mostly decaying stratiform rain by 1700. | |
| October15. | A small Hector type complex was over the islands (~0530-830). | |
| October16. | Afternoon random coastal and mainland convection, not much total area. | |
| October17. | Decent storms over the mainland, but no organization. Early on the 18th also had random storms developing. | |
| IOP 1 Summary | This was pretty early to be having much in the way of convection. What was present tended to be less intense (although some care needs to be exercised as I suspect that the reflectivity is biased low - this is using Berrimah data only) These storms were relatively less intense compared with later events in terms of max reflectivity (pending a calibration check). The max Z at 15 km was about 30 dBZ compared with 40-45 in November. - but that the 10 dBZ storm area at 15 km was similar to total rain (30 dBZ area) for much of the time with the obvious exception of the trailing stratiform region of the squall line. | |
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IOP2 | November 15. | Major storms over mainland as well as Hector (starting ~0300, max intensity ~0540-0750 and completely dissipated by 0900) Mainland storms had a similar cycle of intensity. Tops were up to ~19 km and peak intensity ~0600 UT - between GMS images. Squall line entering the area at 1600- developing a ring structure and then dissipating by ~2230 |
| November 16. | Similar to the 15th , major Hector, intense deep storms over the mainland as well. Developing at 0400 on western end of the Tiwi's, max intensity around 640. Line of storms developing over the mainland from ~640 to 0900 and dissipating rapidly after that. | |
| November 17 | . Coastal storms at ~120 and third large Hector in a row. Initial storms on Tiwi's at ~240 and max intensity at ~450, again mostly on western end of the Islands, but a good E-W oriented line of storm over Garden Point at ~0520 and re-organising to a squall formation by 610 and dissipated by 710.. Squall line entered eastern domain at ~640 went through Darwin and was most organised at ~0900 UT and decaying with just trailing stratiform left by about 1230. | |
| November 18. | Early morning storms (small ) off shore, started as a small line and went through a merger cycle, then another squall line, moving in/initialising at ~810, over Darwin ~1050UT, out of area at about 1230. Good cell entering NE part of domain and persists to cross the Tiwi`s at 1540 and was decaying at that late point, but reached high intensities and kept them. | |
| IOP 2 Summary | Early part there was widespread deep storms over the Darwin area and Tiwi's with strong diurnal modulation. Then a couple of fairly dis-organised squall lines later, although the November 18 one had a line of storms > 100 km long. The 10 dBZ area was again similar to the 40 dBZ area, but these were ~10 * the August areas. | |
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IOP3 | December 11 | . 1st 6 hours had lots of storms kicking off over land (and the Tiwi's ) in a strong low level westerly flow with some also over water to the north. Activity on eastern Melville Is and off shore coninuing to 0840 with lots of left over stratiform rain around for the last couple of hours and continuing until ~1230 before it dissipated. More storms moving in from west and initialising over the ocean at ~1430. By 1800 decaying and forming large areas of stratiform precip with evidence of rotation. The ~1600 peak was much more oceanic and had complicated structure. Decayed by 00 UT. |
| December 12 | Monsoon complex with some rotation evident. Storms moving in from the west at 130. Squall line embedded. Decayed by ~0900. Clearly oceanic origin for these storms. Long squall line forming from 1700 oriented SW-NE between mainland and Tiwi's. Decayed by 2020 but more lines moving into domain from NW. | |
| December 13 | . An initial line starting late on the 12th and then broader weak stuff. All decaying by ~0400. A few weak cells moving in ~2110. | |
| December 14. | A few isolated oceanic storms overnight, but main peak was again associated with convection kicking off over the land, e.g. around 0230, although some oceanic stuff to the north. Little lines generating for a couple of hours and then decaying infto stratiform rain until ~1300. | |
| December 15, 16 | Small area, isolated cells here and there, most starting over the ocean, but a fair number starting up over the land in the afternoon (LT) on the 15th. Still in westerlies. | |
| IOP 3 Summary | This IOP was in something like a monsoon regime, but certainly not a "classic" monsoon with predominantly oceanic convection for much of the time. The storms were generally shallower and it is noticeable that the 15 km 10 dBZ area is much less than the 30 dBZ area unlike the previous cases. Again the upper level max Z is now only 30 dBZ, although the low level Z were quite similar. As with a lot of oceanic storms the Z tended to drop off quite quickly above the freezing level and the max Z at 7 km were also about 10 dBZ less than the 2 km max. Also interesting that the cold cloud top areas were similar in all 3 events, although on the very large scale October has much less area than November and December which are similar. | |