Weather News

2.5 million lightning strikes electrify Aussie skies

Anthony Sharwood, Monday November 18, 2024 - 11:21 AEDT

It was a wild old Sunday over eastern Australia with a vast line of storms from northwest Queensland to southern Victoria marched towards the east coast.

Image: Two-hour radar loop to 5pm (AEDT) Sunday, November 17. Pink represents lightning density.

A total of approximately 2.5 million lightning strikes were recorded Australia-wide on Sunday by Weatherzone's Total Lightning Network, as a well-defined line of storms formed along a trough.

Lightning associated with thunderstorm activity in the tropics of WA and the NT meant that each of the eight Australian states and territories saw significant lightning strike totals which numbered at least in the tens-of-thousands.

At the peak of the storm activity on Sunday afternoon, 3000 pulses per minute were detected Australia-wide.

And just to prove that the NSW outback opal mining town of Lightning Ridge was well named, 25,000 lightning strikes occurred within 50 km of town.

Image: Almost one-and-a-quarter million lightning strikes (1,233, 886 to be exact) were detected within 600km of Parkes, in the NSW Central West, on Sunday, November 17.

As you'd expect with such an active stormy system, significant rainfall totals occurred across a wide area.

Widespread falls in the 10 to 25mm range were recorded across the whole of eastern NSW except for the far northeast and southeast corners.

Many locations in central Victoria and eastern NSW also saw falls in the range of 25 to 50mm, and there were even a few spots in both states that topped 50mm.

Canberra received 22.8mm, its first rainfall for November (and first rain since Oct 21) after almost four bone dry weeks.

The alpine areas of both NSW and Victoria received a welcome drop after a relatively dry month, with 63mm at Thredbo Top Station, and 88.4mm at Mt Hotham, its heaviest November daily rainfall total in almost two decades.

Tasmania also received handy falls in all forecast districts, with totals topping 50mm at some locations in the state's west.

Image. Plenty of places in Australia looked like this on Sunday. Source: Darren Creighton via iStock.

Another wet and stormy week looms for parts of Australia, with northeast NSW and southeast Qld in the firing line for storms and potentially heavy rainfall totals over the next few days.

- Weatherzone

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