Deadly Auckland Tornado - May 3

[Dale]

Real tornado, but mini destruction.. I can live with that

"Carparks scattered with the remains of trees, upturned cars. There's iron off the roof of the old Placemakers, just wrapped around it ... total mini destruction within the carpark."

[Nev]

According to TV3, "The fire brigade have just confirmed there are two dead people following the tornado".

[Dale]

That is not good

[phildan89]

Has anyone got radar images of the storm as it produced the tornado??

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

According to TV3, "The fire brigade have just confirmed there are two dead people following the tornado".

Yes and 14 injured apparantly

[bmo]

Guy speaking on TVNZ says "I saw a car thrown over the placemakers building." I've been in that building it's a couple of meters high. He also says that he heard of one fatality, a guy that was thrown on the ground by iron roofs.
TVNZ confirms two dead and many more injured via fire service.

[03Stormchaser]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnyGzZnPpd4

Prob best video so far.

EDIT: The full video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXYgQn-8nOs

[Razor]

Real tornado, but mini destruction.. I can live with that

"Carparks scattered with the remains of trees, upturned cars. There's iron off the roof of the old Placemakers, just wrapped around it ... total mini destruction within the carpark."

Funny, but slightly inappropriate comment given deaths?

[Nev]

Has anyone got radar images of the storm as it produced the tornado??

[Manukau heads obs]

went for a drive and watched the same CB moving south past here and towards Waiuku., and there was still a wall cloud and lowerings going on, so phoned a few people in Waiuku to warn them of the danger

[Manukau heads obs]

great radar image their Nev
sure is strange seeing a tornado signature hook (i.e a mesocylone) going the opposite way to what you normaly see from rain radar images from the Midwest USA!

[phildan89]

Thanks Nev!

[Michael]

On the radio...live 100.6 they say its now over Mt Roskill or they mean the associated cb?

[Vertigo]

no.. its well south of auckland and probably dissipating by now.. it would have been near mt roskill at 3:30pm

[Manukau heads obs]

yes, that particular CB (it was an individual cell) started to weaken quickly after moving south of Waiuku (I watched it from a vantage point until it had moved south of Waiuku)
these CB's are moving due south

[bmo]

Seeing a CB south of us, looking at it it seems to grow bigger.
Heavy rain clouds passing over the Kaipara Harbour and moving here now.

[Dale]

Inappropriate perhaps, but there was no mention of deaths until after it was posted, so in hindsight my apologies & thoughts with the familys of the deceased and injured.

Back to it though, that second video that was posted back on the last page, I have watched it numerous times & noticed a rather large object, just above the warehouses roof line, being picked up swirled about and thrown some considerable distance.. to me it looked like a tree but if the report above suggests a vehicle was tossed over a building.. mm I dunno, it was big whatever it was that flew.

It is about 3/4 of the way through the clip.

[Orion]

Take care up there, cowkop - thinking of you, and my family members at Red Beach & Silverdale. Waiting to hear they're all safe.

[bmo]

Just saw funnel formation trying to create a funnel cloud but dissipated really quickly.
I'm more worried about the people injured and the families of the two deceased.

[Manukau heads obs]

unstable sky conditions here at the moment
rain radar shows heavy shower line and NNW wind change to move onto us here soon

[Manukau heads obs]

rain radar shows intense cell about to hit eastern side of Waiheke island

[Tornado Tim]

Could Metservice please post a Doppler Image of the tornado please! Pritty please!

[jamie]

Could Metservice please post a Doppler Image of the tornado please! Pritty please!

just emailed them and asked for some dopplar images very nicely

[bmo]

"Auckland Transport said commuters should expect delays on the Western line as trains are running on 40km/h speech restrictions between Newmarket and Avondale."--NZHerald

Even trains are speaking slower, i mean travelling slower!

[BeaconHill]

An incident like this this seems to me provide more weight to the argument that the government needs to "change the rules" and FORCE the MetService to provide free realtime high res radar loops? The first post in this topic picked the possibility of a tornado from (I assume) non-high res images of the approaching rain, so theoretically it would have been easy to see on a high res image, no? Any MetService bods care to comment on this?

A compromise might be everytime there is a "servere weather event" forecast, radar images in that area should cut to real time high resolution. Then revert back to status quo at the end of the signalled event.

Sad day for those caught up for the events, and just a pity there was not more local warnings available. (And yes - I know thunderstorms were predicted in the area many hours before....)