Lighting up: A multiple exposure picture of lightning striking Sydney’s skyline, which was compiled on Wednesday. Photo: Roland Taylor
The lightning strikes “were just constantly coming”, Mr Taylor said. “The storms here roll in quite dramatically.”
That’s quite unlike home in the mountain tourism town of Wanaka, in New Zealand’s South Island. Gloomy, snow-bearing clouds are interspersed with days of sunshine, so “there’s nothing overly beautiful” weatherwise, Mr Taylor said.
Another storm cell late on Thursday night produced a similar electric light show that he plans to post online once his day job with AirBnB permits.
‘Typical of January or February’
And there’s more to come, with Sydney’s sub-tropical mix of sunny mornings, high humidity and afternoon showers or storms likely to continue until at least the middle of next week, Rob Sharpe, a meteorologist at Weatherzone, said.
A long series of low-pressure troughs have moved across Australia only to stall over Queensland rather than move out into the Tasman. Each has then joined with the next trough to ensure moist, onshore winds keep pushing into eastern Australia, Mr Sharpe said.
“It’s more typical of January and February”, rather than the start of summer, Mr Sharpe said. “We’ve got about one more week of this to come.”
A colleague has likened it to Darwin-like conditions.
Sydneysiders have had to cope with a couple of nights of uncomfortable humidity for many, with levels reaching almost 90 per cent around midnight on Friday.
The widespread thunderstorms have also brought much-needed rain to some parched inland towns such as Bourke, although “it’s not the kind of system farmers are looking for”, Mr Sharpe said.
Friday will probably bring more storms for the city, starting from about 3pm, he said. That means workers and parents picking up children will again be watching the rain radars as they plan their evenings.
For Mr Taylor, the news of more tempests is “fantastic”, adding that he might pick a different vantage point to snap the action. “I don’t want to stand under a tree.”
source: smh.com.au
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