A cool season low-topped supercell tornado event near Sydney, Australia

On 4 August 2006 a tornado spawned from a low-topped cool season supercell crossed the shoreline at La Perouse, a coastal suburb of Sydney, Australia. It subsequently damaged some properties before dissipating a short distance inland.

This paper examines the environment and the radar signatures of the tornadic storm. The event is of particular interest as the tornado passed a high-resolution C-band Doppler radar at a distance of only a few kilometers. Although the fast moving parent storm exhibited a very unremarkable reflectivity signature, the combination of the storm environment and the radar velocity signature did provide warning forecasters some evidence to recognize the tornadic event in real time.