Yeah i had a little chuckle when i read that.
Some very nice towers growing just offshore with the odd rumble to go with it. A repeat from yesterday would be nice!!

I see the BOM have updated the Hunters forecast and added the chance of thunderstorms!!

yer i might PM 6DBTH in a sec...... hope to get someone to do this. I would do it myself, however being in Canberra makes me not an ideal choice to talk about Sydney weather.

Here's some more on the subject:

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2011/110526NiyogiStorms.html

Make of it what you will. Indianapolis is very different to Sydney though in terms of background climate (continental temperate vs humid subtropical) and topography.

Cheers for the info Brad - i'm convinced that it affects Sydney - often!

There seems to be a belief in the popular media that we don't get real tornadoes here, only 'mini' ones. I always thought that odd - I would have expected them to exaggerate as they do with everything else. As I understand it, a waterspout is a tornado at sea.

As for thunderstorms, would the seabreeze suppress them? On a sunny or partly cloudy day, heating is normally cut off near the coast by mid to late morning, but continues for most of the day in the Nepean valley and Blue Mts.

Actually, I don't think Sydney's done too badly on the thunderstorm front this summer - by my reckoning, since Dec 1, I've seen the following storms on the North Shore:

* Dec 4, 11 & 19
* Dec 23 (on edge of storm)
* Jan 8 (3 cells one after the other – heavy rain and spectacular light show)
* Jan 15 (on edge of a storm that passed to the North)
* Jan 21
* Feb 12. A few rumbles on Feb 13.

Certainly the current system has been a fizzer here, with light showers every day but only the two pretty unimpressive storms on Feb 12/13.

Just had 15mm in 25 or 30 minutes from a very heavy but quite localised shower. There appear to be quite a few of these scattered about so if you happen to be under one you will get a drenching.

There's a forecast of a chance of thunder and that wouldn't be surprising. Rain rate got to 102mm/hr..pity the weather station graphics don't tell the full story in that regard.

I think we've done a whole lot better this season too Steve777.... but if you look at how many do break-up and skirt around the CBD area on a regular basis, you too might be an 'Urban Effect' believer!
Sea breezes can definitely hinder/kill them, my point was that up or down the coast - on the coast, same wind, same instability, same just about everything - things are different.
Anyway enough of that from me, my questions have been answered and i'm grateful, cheers again, i can now accept it more when storms do miss the Greater Sydney area. I won't like it but until my life changes and i can hit the road more, i'll accept it

My webcam picked up the morning showery storms that passed over Sydney:

http://youtu.be/UcXezOBDX8I

Apologies for the poor quality, it's supposed to be a 720p camera but its resolution is as binding as the UN's.

Yesterday's hail storm in Blackheath, some stones to 2.5cm but most were 1cm or less. Sorry for the groans now and then, I got hit on the head by a couple of 2cm stones at around 55 seconds then I follow the stone to the path:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHxmoQVynwY

Nice work Blizzard, taking 'one for the team' quite literally. That's the good thing about snow, it doesn't get physical like its evil twin.

Yeah, mostly only saw dust inside my head anyway, so there's a good buffer there. I've never actually seen hail bigger than 3.5cm to 4cm here but my roof and my neighbours roof tells me that there has been bigger hail some time in the 1980s, I'd guess.

Nothing much happening today, pretty benign thus far, compared to yesterday. Less sunshine so far on the eastern ranges although its still pretty unstable via the Sydney sounding Li's. Most of that instability is a touch east of here though and the 500hPa winds are puffless.

Storms are almost drifting westwards already, such is the steering slackness.

Those huge up-clouds around 5pm on were pretty spectacular, one due north looked like the mushroom in martin place, but I couldn't get a clear shot at it as was down below trees adn power lines. But then that cold blustery SE wind fired up and blew everything to bits. Although later in teh evening, the air temperature actually got more mild.

Not so warm today, but there's some storms firing up around Ginini, which is further north than they've been developing the last few days, hope that means something good.

Forecast from the weekend is interesting, RAIN for weekend adn beyond. I'm sure it won't happen though.

I was out till about 1am in the morning as cells pulsed here on the coast, it was awesome to observe but footage and pics were too hard to come by, the last hurrah unleashed some big CGs one of which hit a power transformer around the Windang area and let out a hell of a green glow, I was in between frames of my camera, earlier on one behind Wollongong unleashed 2 big clear airs on sunset I was about 30 seconds up the road from being in position, after I had the camera out it decayed.

Notable CGs were around Shellharbour area too after midnight quite large, rain was in the region of about 15mm in an hour, peak rain rate 68mm/hr recorded on my AWS.

Nice pulsie night but nothing else really signifcant to report the rest was a bunch of CCs

today here is rather cluttered.

Thank you OT. I wasn't suggesting that I didn't believe in the 'urban effect' on storms. In fact the experience of the last week is certainly consistent with it - major storms to the North, West, South and even on the radar to the East out to sea. Central Sydney appears to have been a 'doughnut hole' for storms for this system.

I think maybe the high rise buildings in the CBD disrupts storm activity

Ummmm, yeh........ok then.

Homer

what i mean is the urban canyon effect could be disrupting the storms and forcing them to change direction and head else where

its only an idea and i could more than likely be wrong

How could a building no more than 250 metres tall possibly affect a storm that is 10-15km tall??

Can you link us up to some evidence to support this theory..

We can't turn a trick these days, rotten things decided to go due east, under Canberra. Bah. I can see them from our southern windows. What about us? When do we get something?

Well Ant a sudden storm around 17:00 produced 5.0mm in my gauge this arvo. I wonder if we will get some more, BOM got it right today in my neck of the woods.

Cheers Teddy