Greetings,
A sequence of the Visual
or Hi Res IR sat-pics over Western Vic/Eastern SA shows a rather unusual
phenomena what we can only assume to be quantum steps in the inversion
level moving southeastwards towards Tasmania. If you squint, you can detect
3 of these steps (about 100nm apart), maybe even more if you also add a
little imagination. Is this a gravity wave phenomena? Hopefully John McBride
can add these images to his web page.
IR loop 2125 UTC 9 March to 0225 10 March
John McBride
Being a little slow on a Wednesday afternoon, I gave Deanno a call for clarification.
If you look at the IR loop
he referred to, the effect he is discussing is over the western end of
the picture, laying across the
South Australia coastline
between Vincent Gulf and Mt Gambier, where there are a number of wide bands
(a 100 km or so) of low cloud with clear sky north of them; and the whole
structure is moving outhwards.
The physical phenomenon is puzzling. Looking at this morning's Mt Gambier sounding, the flow below the inversion is southerly, with westerly above. Even this is interesting: as the inversion lifts, are the free atmosphere (above inversion) westerlies replaced by southerlies?
There are big differences in the flow along the length of the bands. The Adelaide sounding has a much lower inversion than Mt Gambier, with easterlies both below and above.
John McB
Deryn Griffiths
Viewing the visible
image might give you an entirely different impression. It may be that
the cloud bands are moving from the SE, but contracting from the
N. Unfortunately there are no relevant amdars available.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Return to synoptic
discussion
