Bernard William Newman

Summary

Bernard William Newman Phenomenal Hailstorm with Thunderstorm… (1947)

Parramatta's maximum temperature applied directly to Rathmines pseudo-adiabatic diagram is barely sufficient to surmount the inversion. Instability, however, would have followed very easily with only a slight additional mechanical lift or even if the Rathmines inversion were not real. The thunderstorm, however, did not develop over Parramata, and did not approach within seven miles of Parramata. It may be that not only was the inversion at Rathmines real, but there was probably a much greater inversion over the Parramatta area but no inversion to southward.
Source: Wikisource

Bernard William Newman Phenomenal Hailstorm with Thunderstorm… (1947)

On the other hand conditions at Sydney should have been such that the lifting of the air and the activity of the storm could be maintained. In this case some other means in addition to thermal convection were necessary to lift the condensation beyond the inversion. We are again assuming the inversion was real - if not the temperature curve might have been taken as straight from 770 mbs. to 700 mbs. We would then have had condensation to unlimited height and a thunderstorm certain.
Source: Wikisource

Bernard William Newman Phenomenal Hailstorm with Thunderstorm… (1947)

It is not improbable that moist sea air arriving early over the land might with diurnal heating, be a decisive cause of thunderstorms, or that its arrival might conceivably cause sufficient uplift of upper air to touch off a thunderstorm.
The maximum size of hailstones is discussed in a paper by Belham and Relf in 1937 (Q.J.R. Met. Soc.)
Source: Wikisource

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