Flangs plenty, hail none

The weather forecast for Mallcoota on 18 February suggested a high probability of some  rain and a chance (but less than 25% ) of a lot of rain in the early evening.

In the early afternoon the Weatherzone radar showed precipitation, and a lot of storm activity, in the centre of the State. The crosses show lightning strikes (giving rise to flashes and bangs hence "flangs").

 By 1538 hrs the system had moved East and the small cell over the Wingan was causing us to hear some rumbles.

Although the BoM severe thunderstorm warning did not at this stage extend to our area, bearing in mind the apocalyptic storm in Canberra a few weeks ago, we decided to rearrange a few things to get the Pajero in the garage.  That involved extracting the kayak trailer and putting the boats under the front veranda.

By 1750 the BoM warning included our area and the Weatherzone radar supported that view.

 At about the same time the Bairnsdale radar (which doesn't show lightning strikes as I am too stingy to pay for it) showed the line of weather approaching.

The storm arrived shortly after 1800 hrs with a long of spectacular forked lightning strikes touching down well up the valley.  I didn't try to take any photos as they were not that close together and the lag on a digital camera would make in impossible to capture a strike when seen.  A nice amount of rain fell and the gutters didn't overflow (a reward for cleaning them out on Sunday).

We ended with 7.6 mm at a peak rate of 85 mm.hr - circled in red in chart below.

No hail: but I'd rather that, than looking at a car with shattered glass!

Including a further 0.8 mm on the morning of the 19th we are now up to 97.2 mm for the month (the highest fall in February for BoM Mallacoota is 221mm in 2002). so we are 30 mm more than this date last year.  Doing a pro-rata expansion for the whole year gets us to 1167 mm.