The Fiskville-Yan Yean supercell on approach to Melbourne Airport (excuse the pun!). It explodes on radar at this point and you can see why. I will post storm structure pics when I can but I couldnt resist this tight shot especially with lightning and well.....you can see the rest

I flew out of Melbourne on boxing day and the debris! Holy hell! The huge trees all uprooted blew me away.. I'm still getting all my pics together, thoroughly enjoying hamlan's tho! Epic! More please! I want to see the torrnado!

Previous post Hamlan made, Images 3,4 show the tornado near epping. Large collared stovepipe/cone.

Incredible photos from everyone of what was an amazing event. I missed most of it as I was down at Flinders on the southern Mornington Peninsula. I did catch the storm out in Bass Strait in the late afternoon with a tinge of green and some visible CG's, but I haven't had a chance to even look at the pics, let alone get them up on the web. On Christmas Eve, we were treated to a nice 10 hour intermittent light show with a few close flangs, but not too much rain unfortunately. Thankfully, Santa still made it down the chimney without getting struck!

I have permission from a friend of mine on Facebook to share her album from the storms. These were taken from the Mernda area looking SW towards Epping/Woolert. Unfortunately, there are houses in the way, but part of the incredible structure and colour is still visible.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150548048993023.441440.728803022&type=3

I'll get mine up at some stage, but holidays and 4 kids to entertain at the moment it's a bit tricky!

i guess for some people it is hard to tell in that pictures. some people may have though that they all were tornadoes. sometimes the rotating wall clouds look just a fierce like in the first few pics.

but damm geez hamlan. i wanna know the words that came out of your mouth when it dropped that thing.... maybe we can not repeat them on the forums.. lol beepbeep beepbeep BEEPPEPEPEPEEEEEEEEEPEEPBEEEEEP hehe

i am guessing we will never get an EF rating on these tornadoes because BOM does not do damage surveys?

Thank S Tall

Brad and I will be doing a survey as soon as I return south, we have a number of tracks to investigate (have done quite a few before). The bureau still uses the F-scale in the enhanced format (eF rather than EF), meaning the 1990s update that Fujita proposed...its basically a set of up/down modifiers to the original with some basic additional rules. I don't know if the bureau will have anyone around to survey (people who are survey experienced are quite rare), but will be forwarding results to them. There are a couple of Tornado shots in that set...not just that particular tornado either .

thanks for the reply. i honestly though they were rotating wall clouds O_o

that is a massive tornado then. hopefully we can see pics of what you find on your trip to see the damage tracks

is there an house damage reported a side from hail and rain damage? i am hopefully it did not hit someone home.

Pics 3/4, 7/8 Correspond to the two, rest are wall cloud related.

ah ok i thought i was right about the wall clouds. and hmm its faint. i wish the pics were of a higher resolution so i could blow them up a bit more.

maybe my wife is right, maybe i do need glasses

As much as I respect your opinion John, I am going to have to remain skeptical. Whilst Brad's pictures do show plenty of suspicious low clouds, most are either blocked by trees or too far in the distance to show any clear evidence of a tornado on the ground.

so in your terms just so we are all clear. what do you need to call it a tornado?. not having a go but i am learning and i like to hear everyones opinion , so in the future i can do the same

what do you need for evidence? a tornado out in a field with obvious debris cloud ripping up dust or something?.?.. tornado clearly on the ground in an open space? strong photo evidence of a tornado darkening due to debris being sucked up so you see a solid image of a cone/wedge/stove pipe?

Irrespective of the talk of tornadoes, this event looks like potentially getting close to matching the Sydney 1999 hailstorm in terms of damage being claimed (based on the claims lodgements we've seen so far in the insurance company I work for).

The damages bill for this event is highly likely to top a billion dollars and that is being quite conservative.

I am the ultimate skeptic, EF5. Which is probably irritating for people like John and Brad, because knowing what I do of them, if they thought they saw it with their own eyes, then it probably happened. I just have a tough time believing claims of tornadoes and such if a photo is being used as evidence though and it doesn't show it to the point of no doubt. I'm not looking for a debris field or anything like that as proof. Some evidence of it's shape is always good though, and if I can't see it touching the ground, then I can't say 100% that what I'm looking at is a tornado, just a possible funnel. Anyone who has a deep interest in storms will tell you the same thing. I can guarantee Brad and John would be just as skeptical as me if they were looking at someone elses photos.

It is hard to make out any shape in the photos John referenced. I actually think the second one of the set is the most interesting as it looks like a funnel starting to come down next to the inflow tail. Their may well be something hiding in the photos John pointed out, but I can't see it. The other photos have multiple areas of interest too, but it's just too hard to draw any conclusions with the trees in the way.

This is why video footage always helps, if you can see clear rotation in a video clip then we're half way there. Hopefully Brad will find some time to post up some the footage he recorded on the day.

The biggest thing that makes me sceptical, is the complete lack of any footage or photos of the supposed tornado(s) aside from 2 people. Amongst hundreds of videos posted and thousands of photos published, I'm struggling to accept that NOT ONE OTHER person has got a good footage or photo of a tornado that makes it undeniably beyond doubt.
Also, not one news item that I am aware of has shown or indicated damage caused by a tornado, while generally in the past if there was one, we would be bombarded by reports, and we would be all complaining about the use of the m word....
Ultimately, I cannot fathom why we haven't got hundreds of eyewitness tornado reports based on what happened that day and what was indicated on radar... that all points to the distinct likelihood... so... the question remains... why don't we?
There is I suppose a chance the tornado was so hidden that people have footage or photos that they don't even realise has it. But then I go back to the fact where is the damage then?

I will be eagerly awaiting the damage assessment, and also BOM's final report on the day.

i think maybe the main question is then.. who was the chaser who called the tornado into BOM... was it brad aka hamlan? i personally think he has balls of steel to have done this chase given the radar images

if so maybe there is the cause of all the tornado talk? im not saying he didnt get his tornado but it could be an explanation to the above comment?

i guess its true if a monster F4 tornado[ given the radar its a possibility] is in your neighborhood someone is going to film the beast unless it was a HP mess, given many places were flash flooded i am thinking this is true, also given it was christmas there would be cameras a plenty in peoples homes

I recall a BOM spokesperson saying that the visual sighting was from a credible source. That was circa 5 pm on Christmas Day. (Maybe retrievable on an ABC podcast?).

Hamlans photo 3/4 on previous pages shows a tempter that I'd love to see what eventually evolved. However his location at the time DEFINITELY needed a hasty exit.

No matter what, this was definitely Vic's most severe storm that I've (remotely) monitored in my 52 years.

I agree Petros.
I'm a smidgen off your age
And I feel too that this was one of the worst storm sets I've seen in my lifetime.
I've witnessed a tornado (black funnel) which ripped through the suburb I grew up in (path from Melbourne'ish/west to east) in Waverley (Vic.), when I was little. It tore up huge trees along a main road. The spot it did this damage is a huge roadside nature-strip, where the original road was built around these trees when the houses were being built. This large nature-strip is still the same shape today, but I'm betting that few people younger than us would know why it (nature-strip) is shaped the way it is
Another mini one (funnel) ripped up our fencing and gutted our huge vegie garden (again when I was a kid).
Cheers

I agree Teckert I don't think it's conclusive at this juncture. However, as you say, rain wrapped tornadoes whether they are F0 or F5 are hard to identify and photograph. I remember being in Oklahoma (as were Brad and Clyve) on 24 May last year, when a F5 tornado traversed from El Reno to Guthrie, a 100 kms track. The tornado was only well photographed at its genesis and there were probably hundreds of people chasing that day.

I'd love to know if anyone has footage of anything out near Fiskville and then SE of Bacchus cuz the signature on radar out that way was even more pronounced, as for these photos I am not even following the sequence of numbers being referred to, but I dont sleep much and have limited capacity, ha ha.

Several of these photos show some elements of rotation even as stills (and missychops is simply gobsmacking) and a couple do appear to have a funnel/cone in the mess, I have personally seen lesser looking storms produce tornadoes (in the US) so do not doubt the storms capacity. I have posted in this thread a photo of a storm that had a lowered structure (storm 2 on the day) with an inflow tail/cloud from my front porch. Alot was happening this day! Storm 3, I could not photograph what I saw to my NW (due to rain), as I ran to the end of the street to check what I thought I was watching(inflow from 2 points toward a hard structured lowering) but IMO was heading to tornado rapidly, the first time I can categorically say that about an Australian storm I have seen ever (except near Echuca 2 summers ago but thats another story).

In any event I wait for further photos and hopefully video of an epic day and remain somewhat shattered that it was Xmas day and therefore I was not sitting near Melton or Bacchus airport as I have on countless marginal average days under fair weather cu...