Messy week ahead Dec 13th-19th

Storm Struck · Unread post by **Storm Struck** » Sun 19/12/2004 11:32

What level is the snow at in Canterbury? because crazy enough as it sounds amongst all the heavy rain and strong to gale force SW winds it's actually trying to sleet I know I neva thought id say it in December.
But I checked to confirm it and it had that specky white big drop look to it and when it hit a small pool of water on the deck it sorta fizzled out rather than a big splash from the big sporadic drops of rain we have been having off and on over night and this morning.
It's sounds not possable but what I was looking at was what I seen back in August just as the rain was turning to sleet then snow.
Funi enough it's 8dg out here iv'e got 37mm in my rainguage since 10pm Friday night.
And mannn did that southerly pick up last night at midnight I went out to check just before hitting the sack and it was up around 60-70kmh on windometre.

Yeah this week coming looks good for thunderstorms over the country and here at this stage possably Tuesday not bad for Wednesday not sure about Thursday and Friday yet.
John what do you think?.
Cheers
JASON TIPPET.

03Stormchaser · Unread post by **03Stormchaser** » Sun 19/12/2004 11:38

what extreme weather were having!!

Its diffenitly not December!

looking at Jeffs weather page the facts for December are:

This Month Compared to This Time Last Year
As at 11:20 Sun 19 Dec 2004 NZDT (UTC +13 Hours)

Temperature Dec 2004 : Dec 2003
Mean 12.0 Â°C : 16.2 Â°C
Mean Maximum 17.4 Â°C : 21.9 Â°C
Mean Minimum 7.5 Â°C :11.0 Â°C
Maximum High 26.8 Â°C :30.2 Â°C
Maximum Low 12.7 Â°C :14.3 Â°C
Minimum High 11.1 Â°C : 15.3 Â°C
Minimum Low 2.8 Â°C : 6.1 Â°C

Wind Speed and Direction
Maximum Gust 60 km/h (19th): 59 km/h
Average 9.3 km/h : 8.0 km/h
Wind Run 4256 km :3809 km
Max Daily Windrun 346 km (6th) : 311 km

Rainfall
Days with Measured Rainfall 10 :0
Max Daily Rainfall 31.6 mm (5th) :0.0 mm
Monthly Rainfall 107.4 mm :0.0 mm

Hope that makes sense!

jeffsweather · Unread post by **jeffsweather** » Sun 19/12/2004 12:54

Basically it means its been a lot
colder
windier
wetter

then last December though last December was very dry, just 2mm recorded for the whole month.

Really blowing here today with frequent light squally showers, might end up as the windiest day of the year exceeding the southerly 415km wind run of the 15th Feb, today its 308km so far.

Thunder · Unread post by **Thunder** » Sun 19/12/2004 13:27

Quite a good day yesterday, unfortunatley no lightning seen but a few scferics heard and dots on the tracker seen on the Plains.

Some good Cb's about with good hail swathes as Steven G mentions. One of them just hit all of a sudden with quite intense hail! It was good but only lasted around a minute as the Cb's were fast moving. Metservice put up a low risk of storms in the eastern Canterbury foothills and that's exactly where our first Cb for the day appeared.

At the Rakaia Gorge it was very calm with no wind, also quite warm with the sun out. It would've got warmer there than it did in Chch for a bit I'd say. I'll put up some pics at some point today, along the same lines as Steven G's pics above.

tich · Unread post by **tich** » Sun 19/12/2004 16:25

Andy wrote:Partly cloudy here and no wind.

Fresh snow to the west looks to be around 700-800m.

Temp 9 degrees.

Would've replied to this thread much earlier, but internet access very difficult to find where I was.

Sleet falling in Ranfurly on Friday evening - woke up Saturday morning to see a good coating of snow on the ranges to the north to about 1000m I guess. Only a few scattered showers near Ranfurly, but as we moved down the Taieri to Middlemarch, there were some squally showers with very small hail. A light dusting of snow above about 1200m on the Rock&Pillar Range.
Lighter showers this morning from Palmerston to Oamaru, but mainly fine further north, though I'm pretty sure there were some showers about the (snow covered) Canterbury foothills, despite the 1PM radar showing nothing there. Fine in Chch, but still some cloud about. It may not be completely over yet, as I also saw a towering cumulus to the south of Canterbury as I was coming up the plains this afternoon.

tich · Unread post by **tich** » Sun 19/12/2004 17:36

4PM radar does show shower activity over the foothills, and cloud has built up to the west of Chch, with scattered clouds elesewhere about the city. Wind became very strong and gusty for a while about 1/2 hour ago. A chilly 11C

NZ Thunderstorm Soc · Sun 19/12/2004 17:54

Jasestrm wrote: Yeah this week coming looks good for thunderstorms over the country and here at this stage possably Tuesday not bad for Wednesday not sure about Thursday and Friday yet.
John what do you think?.
Cheers
JASON TIPPET.

I still have a 4 for both Tuesday and Thursday but I thought... @#%(* it, I might go the whole hog and put out a 5 for Wednesday instead

$\:D/$ at the moment.

JohnGaul
NZTS

tich · Unread post by **tich** » Sun 19/12/2004 18:18

More cloud in Chch now with cold gusty winds continuing. Maybe a few more showers, even small hail?

tich · Unread post by **tich** » Sun 19/12/2004 22:02

I must add that while having a break at the Cafe in Hyde (between Ranfurly and Middlemarch, the Cafe/Hotel owner said that there had been a heavy hailstorm the afternoon before (Friday 17th), leaving about 4 inches (her words) of hail on the ground.

I also noticed how green Central Otago (as seen from the trail) was

, except for a small area near Alexandra. Must've been unusually high rainfall recently in what is normally NZ's driest area.

Storm Struck · Unread post by **Storm Struck** » Sun 19/12/2004 22:55

Went over the Summit road this afternoon and into Lyttleton summit road had bits of rock fallen on the road near the top which must have been the heavy rains recently.
Also heard about a farmer who said that one of his cattle had been hit by a bolt of lightning just 20km north of Cheviot on Friday.
The Farmer Lesley natcoll was shocked when he turned around to see the bolt come down into his paddock while moving some stock into his shed.
He Then ran towards the cattle and noticed the strucken cow.
The cow died within minutes of him being there and three other cattle also died from shock,fright,and brightness which probly blinded them.
My freinds dad knows him through farming work and sometimes visits him.
Intersting aye.

.
Cheers
JASON TIPPET.

tich · Unread post by **tich** » Mon 20/12/2004 13:49

Foggy Hamilton wrote:People always refer to this as 'wintry' weather, but if we were in mid-early july and we got this same southerly blast with hectopascals, temps @ 11am would be below freezing in places like Waiouru, Alexandra, Queenstown etc. (Queenstown on 4c at 11am to note)
Auckland would be on about 9c, Hamilton 8c, Taupo 5c, Napier 7c, Wellington 7c, Christchurch 3c and snow, Dunedin 2c and snow, Invercargill 2c and snow...

So therefore, this is summer-like weather but we're very unlucky to have all these south to southwesterly situations

When cold outbreaks occur in summer, I like to imagine what an identical or very similar outbreak would be like in winter. I would guess that this last weekend's chilly blast, if it had occurred in winter, would produce very cold temperatures and widespread low-level snow in the nature of the polar southerlies of July 2003 and August this year. In this case, snow on hill country just south of Auckland could even be a possibility, as the very cold air has still been moist and unstable as it affected the upper North Island.