Sydney storms on Friday

[TerraHertz]

Well that was unusual weather for summer in Sydney. Two separate dramatic lightning-filled thunderstorms in one afternoon. One around 4pm, another around 10:30pm.
Who else in Sydney lost power on Friday afternoon?

I'm curious, because with the 4pm one we lost power and it wasn't restored till 9pm. It went out exactly coincident with a very near lightning strike (virtually no delay between flash and bang.) And through the whole storm, which only lasted about an hour, there was not the slightest wind. Just rain and lightning. Later I drove around searching for the damage. No trees down, nothing. Found the boundary of where the HV feeder lines were live vs dead. Seemed like a breaker dropped out, probably in a specific street transformer.

On the first call to Energy Australia, their recorded estimate said restoration by 7pm. Didn't happen. I took another drive around. Same - found no visible storm damage anywhere, no change. But also interestingly, still no sign of any crews anywhere. Not one.

About 7:30pm I called Energy Australia again. Now the estimate was 10pm. I got through to a human. Her script was "massive amounts of storm damage, many trees and lines down, our crews are out and working hard."

So my question: did any other areas of Sydney actually have wind storm damage on Friday 29th Jan between 4pm and say 6pm?
Because there wasn't any I could find in Revesby-EastHills- Bankstown area. Of course there could have been somewhere, I didn't drive every street. But did all local streets in the range of that lightning strike, and further out.
Power came back on at 9:05pm.

Also, I stopped by Sydney South (the big substation on Henry Lawson Drive. Some may know what it is, but let's not talk about that.) Apparently no one there. Rang the 'doorbell' - it's an intercom direct to Transgrid Ops center. A guy there answered it in about 2 seconds flat. Interesting chat. Transgrid knows nothing about local operations by Ausgrid.

Someone needs to cut the weeds at Syd. Sth. It's starting to look like an abandonment.

Think I may start making a map of the local HV distribution mesh. The disconnect between what Energy Aust spokesperson was saying, and what I could see with my own eyes was ... intriguing.

Then around 10:20pm, with another storm approaching I ordered a pizza. Bad idea. Within 10 minutes the heaviest rain I've ever seen here started. Kind of fun driving to pickup in that. Visibility about 15 meters at worst. Just getting to the car there were unavoidable ankle deep puddles.

[Muttley Snickers]

I was watching the news down here when we copped it and I ran around the house to disconnect everything from the mains, pretty rare to see simultaneous thunder and lighting storms in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane but that's what they said was going to happen.

We live on a slight hill so water gets away rather quickly and I have a boat in the back yard ready to go at a moments notice just in case of a dramatic emergency situation, such as picking up a pizza or two.

[apelly]

Think I may start making a map of the local HV distribution mesh. The disconnect between what Energy Aust spokesperson was saying, and what I could see with my own eyes was ... intriguing.

That sort of talk'll get you on a watchlist for sure!

[Whales]

Ausgrid are the guys that actually handle restoring power and maintaining the network.  Energy Australia now just does retail (Ausgrid span out of EA a few years back).

http://www.ausgrid.com.au/Common/Customer-Services/Electricity-supply/Blackouts-and-power-restoration/Power-outages.aspx#/map

This information is not always 100% accurate.

[Richard Crowley]

Think I may start making a map of the local HV distribution mesh.

Reminds me of the joke about the power lineman giving directions to one of his fellow-workers.

"From the Abernathy Distribution Yard, follow the 38KV line west to the 9th street substation, and then the 17KV line north for three transformers, and then turn left."

[Whales]

Reminds me of the joke about the power lineman giving directions to one of his fellow-workers.

"From the Abernathy Distribution Yard, follow the 38KV line west to the 9th street substation, and then the 17KV line north for three transformers, and then turn left."

I was talking to an Ausgrid cleaner the other day and he mentioned this.  Following the 11kV/33kV overheads to the nearest substation can be useful if you can't find it or you are lost.  These wires tend to be high up on the poles and in sets of 3, vs the lower mains wiring which is often in sets of four wires.

Think I may start making a map of the local HV distribution mesh.

I don't know if Ausgrid will happily share their maps, but it's worth asking.

[cimmo]

For those interested in Sydney's electricity substation architecture:
https://mirrorsydney.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/sydney-substations/

[Brumby]

I'm a bit west of Dave and I've just ridden out one storm.  From the weather radar, I thought it would last longer - but the worst was over in 15 minutes.

There is another one on its way - which Dave will likely cop as well - plus at least one more building up behind it.

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR714.loop.shtml#skip
(This is a real-time feed, so you'll see the last half hour from the time you are looking at it.  The radar I'm referring to will only be visible for the next 10-20 minutes)

Storms and rain in general sometimes take curious paths around Sydney.  Looking at the radar you'd swear you were going to get soaked.  Then, just a few km away, the rain parts and goes around you.

[Brumby]

Well that one wimped out ....  Turned into a sun-shower - and Dave probably just got a bit of rain.

There's a bit more coming along - but this time I'm just gonna wait and see what happens.

[TerraHertz]

Well that one wimped out ....  Turned into a sun-shower - and Dave probably just got a bit of rain.

There's a bit more coming along - but this time I'm just gonna wait and see what happens.

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR712.loop.shtml
It's fun isn't it? Like playing Battleships, except one is the target.

The problem at my place, is two buildings about 30 meters apart with an underground cat-5 run between them. This easily kills router ports if there's a nearby strike. I really need to switch that to a fiber link, but, poor, not sure what to get, and not eager for the amount of work. Digging up at least 3 conduit intersection boxes and a lot of cable pulling through conduits already fairly full.

Think I may start making a map of the local HV distribution mesh. The disconnect between what Energy Aust spokesperson was saying, and what I could see with my own eyes was ... intriguing.

That sort of talk'll get you on a watchlist for sure!

Pretty sure I already was. A quick story: Some years ago I was making a point in a public forum (forget where) that there are no *real* terrorists (as opposed to the regular gov-run psyops) because if there were real ones they could very easily shut down any major city indefinitely, without risking a hair on their own heads. Listed a few methods, one being to set up in the bush surrounding the primary intake substations in a city, and put a bullet in each of the huge 300KV long line stepdown transformers. 30 seconds job, then walk away easily Those things do not have spares sitting in warehouses ready to swap in. The result would be catastrophic. Would the power outage be weeks, or months?

Anyway... remarkably shortly afterwards, Sydney's two major switchyards sprouted thick concrete walls around the transformers. Good. Hopefully they thought that one through themselves, and it didn't take me pointing it out to fix that problem. Though, I notice they didn't build the walls high enough to shield the insulator stacks.

And in the US, there were a few exercises where electricity grid (and coms) infrastructure did get shot out.

Oh, and maybe you can blame me for the Oz government's hysterical banning of personal import of decent power hand held laser pointers. Before any of that stupidity started, during the anti-scientology demos, I wrote about what fun it would be if a few hundred (or thousand) people turned up with good strong laser pointers, and at an agreed signal, all switched on at once and pointed them at something annoying. I think I was a bit more specific. Ha ha... suddenly lots of media reports of individuals pointing them at planes etc, therefore they must be banned. Like that never happened before. Or really mattered.

Meanwhile the stupid jerks in power are shutting down and dismantling all our generating capacity margin, in the name of AGW. Fools. Unless they actually *want* to achieve a societal crash. or really are clueless about the already beginning new solar Maunder Minimum. It's going to be a lot more cloudy and cold, for about a hundred years, which will make all that solar electric capacity pretty worthless.

[Brumby]

It's fun isn't it? Like playing Battleships, except one is the target.

That's about right.   

[ketil b]

So my question: did any other areas of Sydney actually have wind storm damage on Friday 29th Jan between 4pm and say 6pm?
Because there wasn't any I could find in Revesby-EastHills- Bankstown area. Of course there could have been somewhere, I didn't drive every street. But did all local streets in the range of that lightning strike, and further out.
Power came back on at 9:05pm.

I'm in Panania and I think there was a strike pretty close to us which took out the power at about 1:30 got it back about 9. I couldn't see any damage thow, all thow the one that came over last week did set fire to the substation at the east hills girls school just up the road. And I think that the uniting church got hit in the one that came over today

thanks

ketil

[TerraHertz]

http://www.ausgrid.com.au/Common/Customer-Services/Electricity-supply/Blackouts-and-power-restoration/Power-outages.aspx#/map

Not responding at all atm. Too many people trying to access it? (all 10 from eevblog)

[Halcyon]

We had a few disruptions up in the Blue Mountains, but nothing lasting more than a second or two. Milperra et. al. always seems to cop it in terms of power outages. We had a couple of under-volts yesterday too but not enough for the APC software to register as a "blackout". UPS responded as expected though.

[dave_k]

It was fun for me .. sitting in the workshop, underneath the Artarmon TV tower. At approx 13:21 something which sounded like a fire cracker going off filled the room, then the almighty BANG followed. The tower took a direct hit 

[SeanB]

Lived where the next door building ( across the street) had a decent lightning strike one evening. Blew out most of the power in the building, and popped a few lights in my building stairwells as well. We are on the same 11kV feeder, but different transformers, they have a 1MVA and I was on a 200kVA one., so there was a fair surge. Neighbours lost lights, TV sets and such, but I had nothing fail. Lots of MOV units on the incoming supply, and I did use those supplied surge arrestors that came with the modem, and did connect it to mains earth as well.

I used to live in a small town at the end of 200km of 66kV overhead line, which ran at the ridge of a mountain range. Storm within 100km and we would lose power for around 6 hours. Had lightning strike the phone lines 40km away, and the only thing in the exchange that survived was the battery bank. They had to cut the racking with angle grinders as the rack screws were mostly melted and did not want to come undone. Spare exchange was sourced by ripping out overnight a new install but awaiting commissioning and changeover unit 200km away. That town had to wait another 6 months for the phone upgrade from operator made to direct dial. I bought a lot of big MOV units there, and quite a few were killed protecting the equipment.

Friend moved up to the top of the hill, so now is in the lightning belt. He did buy a few surge plugs, but as I see some still in the package I suggested that plugging them in was probably not optional, along with unplugging the ADSL line when storms were expected. TV sets, alarms and such get expensive when all blow at once.

[Muttley Snickers]

We copped it big time last night down here in Melbourne, I've spent most of the day cleaning up debris from falling trees and all sorts of stuff that got picked up and dropped from who knows where, huge winds and heavy rain bought down trees everywhere, one big gum came down over the driveway and we lost two smaller trees in the back yard altogether.

Another Banksia out on the nature strip split in two and came down on the road out front so I rang Vicroads instead of the local council and they were out within 20 minutes to cut it up, I had enough on my plate without worrying about that one, also we have most of the side timber fence blown over and Mick over the road lost part of his chimney so we were out taking pictures for possible insurance claims as well.

From our place I could see about a dozen roof tiles that had come adrift from a group of two story town houses about 100 yards away so I went around, knocked on the door and notified the fellow and offered to bring back an extension ladder to put them back in place before it rained again, he said not to worry and that he would contact his body corporate about it, best of luck with that I said and I returned home with a smirk, the tiles are still off, I don't know some people have no idea.

Also my size 12 knee high gum boots which were sitting on the back verandah in a dry area were half full of rain water this morning if that gives any clue as to how much we got.

   

[SeanB]

Also my size 12 knee high gum boots which were sitting on the back verandah in a dry area were half full of rain water this morning if that gives any clue as to how much we got.

So an average summer rainstorm here then. Around 50mm in a half hour is one of the bigger ones in recent memory, though another dumped around 100mm of water over the evening, and we are still in a drought.

[kolbep]

So an average summer rainstorm here then. Around 50mm in a half hour is one of the bigger ones in recent memory, though another dumped around 100mm of water over the evening, and we are still in a drought.

Also adding to our water woes in South Africa, is all the previous governments fault (from over 30 years ago!),
According to our current government, the previous government built the Reservoirs too big . So they take too long to fill up. If they (the previous government) had built the reservoirs smaller, we would not be having the water problems   

[Halcyon]

It was fun for me .. sitting in the workshop, underneath the Artarmon TV tower. At approx 13:21 something which sounded like a fire cracker going off filled the room, then the almighty BANG followed. The tower took a direct hit 

I think I'd have fallen off the chair.

[Muttley Snickers]

Some sad news people, after the recent storms the damaged Banksia tree out the front was deemed to be a threat by the council so they removed it altogether, the local lorikeets and other parrots won't be impressed at all, it also looks like the fellow in the town houses is still waiting on the body corporate to organise someone to put the roof tiles in place, some people.

A couple of pictures below so you will know I wasn't telling fibs.

[TerraHertz]

It was fun for me .. sitting in the workshop, underneath the Artarmon TV tower. At approx 13:21 something which sounded like a fire cracker going off filled the room, then the almighty BANG followed. The tower took a direct hit 

I've noticed that effect with very close strikes too. Last year with a near direct hit that killed several bits of networking gear, there was a sharp 'snap' that sounded like it was in the room, then probably only a few milliseconds later the huge boom.
How could the 'snap' precede the boom if it was from outside? I think it actually is from in the room, caused by arc-overs between metal objects from the EMP.

Mutley, yeah, why are some people so helpless? After the storm of 20151209 here, on a walk on a nearby street I noticed a branch had punched a smallish hole in the tile roof of a single story house. Knocked on the door to let the owner know, if he didn't. Normal looking guy opens the door, says he knows, has phoned emergency services to help. Thanked me for telling him.
JFC, don't you even ladder?

It snowed in Kuwait. http://9gag.com/gag/anN9rd5

Edit to add: Another 'learned helplessness' one: Walking around after a recent storm, I found a small tree fallen down across a driveway, blocking some cars in. There were some people standing around looking frustrated, several of them on their phones. About 5 of them were fit looking guys. I said if they wanted to, they and I together could *easily* drag the tree out of the way. (Experience from dragging small fallen trees for firewood, while camping.) They seemed to think it was an outlandish idea, and they'd prefer to wait for emergency services to come and cut it up. I left them to their waiting.

[Muttley Snickers]

I'm thinking about taking bets as to when these roof tiles are going to be put back in place, they are still off and if we get any more rain then these people are going to end up with a cascading waterfall feature in the upstairs bedroom.

I had a look just now and it appears that more tiles have slipped and I expect that the insulation and probably the plaster ceiling are already saturated, I've done my bit by telling them about it as they wouldn't have known and as mentioned I offered to get up and put them back in place.

Anyway I should start a book and spin the PTZ around to that direction, perhaps a live stream even, just to be fair.

[TerraHertz]

I'm thinking about taking bets as to when these roof tiles are going to be put back in place, they are still off and if we get any more rain then these people are going to end up with a cascading waterfall feature in the upstairs bedroom.

I had a look just now and it appears that more tiles have slipped and I expect that the insulation and probably the plaster ceiling are already saturated, I've done my bit by telling them about it as they wouldn't have known and as mentioned I offered to get up and put them back in place.

Anyway I should start a book and spin the PTZ around to that direction, perhaps a live stream even, just to be fair.

So, it's the 11th now. Are the tiles still off? Were they eventually fixed by the body corporate mommy?
I find this syndrome fascinating. How long can a civilization last, when most people won't lift a finger to help themselves?

[Muttley Snickers]

Sorry Terra I should have come back with a follow up but didn't think anyone was interested, they went back on the afternoon of the sixth according to the DVR by a dude with a wonky ladder and no harness or fall restraint and I was watching the whole affair at the time, they were damn lucky we didn't get much rain after the storms.