Near the southern Gulf of Carpentaria coast looking northeastwards - October 1981
THE MORNING GLORY
Morning glory is the name given to a spectacular travelling wave-cloud system commonly observed over the southern part of the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York Peninsula region of northeastern Australia and adjacent seaboard (see Smith, 1988 and Christie, 1992 for recent reviews). The disturbance is accompanied by sudden wind squalls, intense low-altitude wind shear and a marked vertical displacement of air parcels, sometimes sufficient to initiate showers or thunderstorms in the wake of the disturbance. The majority of disturbance have their origin in organized mesoscale circulations that develop over the peninsula and adjacent gulf associated with sea breezes. However, some morning glory disturbances moving from the south are generated by frontal systems crossing central Australia (Smith et al., 1995).
Near the southern Gulf of Carpentaria coast looking northeastwards - October 1981
Northwest of Burketown looking northwards - October 1988
The morning glory at Burketown 6 October 1991
REFERENCES
Christie, D.R., 1992: The morning glory of the Gulf of Carpentaria: a paradigm for non-linear waves in the lower atmosphere. Aust. Met. Mag., 41, 21-60.
Smith, R. K., 1988: Travelling waves and bores in the lower atmosphere: the ‘morning glory’ and related phenomena. Earth-Sci. Rev., 25,267-290.
Smith, R. K., M. J. Reeder, N. J. Tapper and D. R. Christie, 1995: Central Australian cold fronts. Mon. Wea. Rev., 114, 19-38.
Date 16 September 1997