NZstorm wrote:
Yes, I thought the media overstated the damage at Greymouth. Original reports were of 'houses being demolished'. The only thing demolished was a garage.
Isnt the 3rd too last photo of a house demolished??
Fujita Phil wrote:
Exactly... I was speaking to one of my clients who returned from the West Coast earlier this week and they didn't believe there was as much damage as we all saw on telly
45 houses, 35 businesses and dozens of vehicles were damaged. Damage into the millions!! ooh the TV must have lied.
Of course there wouldnt be as much damage, what you saw on the TV was directly after the tornado, and only of affected areas, go there afterwards and the clean up is in full swing, some how there wouldnt be as much damage.
Location: West Coast Road, Manukau Peninsula, North Island
Unread postby Manukau heads obs »
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NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:I just posted a bit of diologue on this forum but it went astray for some apparent reason.?
I'll have another go
...anyway, from what I can remember what I wrote that even the tornado did that damage, it was a F2 rating,even though the old foundary which was built like a brick ****-house, suffered that much damage which a F3 rating of damage would qualify, judging by the photo of the tornado funnel , it would only qualify for an F2 rating as judging by the tin/iron flying around, the internal speeds would of been around 215k/hr
Here is a photo of the foundery in Greymouth taken by a friend of mine.
Bachh! This tornado rating thing is difficuilt in a way. What is a "well constructed house", was the house in taranaki 'well constructed'? Oh well, more to learn....
Those pics did take a while to do, thanks
John, if you can't resize it email it to me and I can get it up here for you if you want....
Aaron J Wilkinson wrote:Bachh! This tornado rating thing is difficuilt in a way. What is a "well constructed house", was the house in taranaki 'well constructed'? Oh well, more to learn....
Those pics did take a while to do, thanks
John, if you can't resize it email it to me and I can get it up here for you if you want....
Hi Aaron, I'll send you these pics via email.
I like the bit about a well constructed house.
Freddy Fejuta's rating go through Americans built houses not NZ ones
As you said, was the house that went through Taranaki a well built one, for a F4 rating like what that Bob McDavitt said??
That old foundary woud of stood the test of time, gone through many weatherevents, withstood earthquakes and now succumb to the mighty tornado of 2005???
Here's the pics from John that he sent me plus a story from one of John's associates(?) on the coast and how her father worked at the foundary.
I know most of you have probably heard about the tornado that hit Greymouth this afternoon by now and seen pictures on the news, but I thought I'd share my story and pictures with you all. Infact, if you've seen the news you'll have already seen my Dad's work cos it was one of the worst places hit. The damage here is incredible. Something like 24 business and 14 homes have been hit, many to the extent as shown in the attached photos. Some poor people have totally lost their homes. I just can't get over the damage, power poles snapped, buildings completely crushed, cars and buses tossed - I thought they only got tornadoes like this in the USA! Amazingly there is only a few injuries and no-one has died.
My Dad and many of his employees were working in the ruined section of the building when the tornado hit. The power went off suddenly, and they could hear some kind of noise that seemed to be getting closer. They glimpsed it out the window seconds before it hit and dived for whatever cover they could find.
A falling ceiling beam missed my Dad and the two guys he was crouching in a corner with by less than a metre, only cos the edge of it grazed the wall.
There was debris flying everywhere. It is so incredible that no-one was injured.
If you saw some of the footage of the tornado hitting on the news it was shot by one of Dad's employees right next to the section of building that got destroyed.
The wall that the tornado smashed out effortlessly was 4 bricks thick. Huge pieces and steel have been bent out of shape. God knows where all the debris from the roof and building have gone, it seems like most of it has been dumped on a hill behind Greymouth, I'm terrible with distances but it'd be a least a kilometre or two away. Its all very mind-boggling.
All in all, its probably a good thing that it ripped right thru' the centre of the building like it did. If it hit the neighbouring property to the right, which is an LPG station, there probably wouldn't be anything left of Greymouth anymore.
Cheers
Aaron Wilkinson
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Just returned from 2 weeks in the South Island - I saw a huge anvil off to the south west from Blenheim in the afternoon of the tornado day, had just heard about it on the car radio. Interesting eh?
03 Stormchaser wrote:Received an email about this tornado, and there rating on it was a T5 - T6ish
They rated it this way as he thought it was more accurate than the f/scale. So what excatly is the t/scale??
Its a scale called the TORRO scale (the Brits like to think it's international) - goes from 0 up to 10
T5 = 136-160 mph - "Motorcars become airborne with more serious building damage than a T4. House walls usually remain standing but the weakest and old buildings may collapse altogether"
T6 = 161-186 mph - "Heavy motor vehicles become airborne; strong houses loose entire roofs and perhps a wall; more of the less strong buildings collapse"
Mainlanders get a tornado twist
NZ Herald
6 April 2005
A weather expert is baffled by the recent spate of tornadoes on the West Coast and will investigate them further. Two houses in Runanga lost part of their roof when a small tornado blew through the town on Monday. The Yvonne Rust Trust house, on Seven Mile Rd, was the worst affected, with the twister pulling off half its roof and dropping it on a nearby section.
Runanga chief fire officer Tom Griffin said about 10 crew and a local builder worked for about two hours to secure the house but there was some water damage. "The house next door also had half a dozen sheets and half the garage roof taken off." On March 10 a tornado left a 4km trail of damage.
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research spokesman Dr Warren Gray said the recent tornadoes were interesting because they did not fit the two types of causes. Traditionally tornadoes were caused either by the land surface heating, causing thunderstorms, or when cold air settled on a warm ocean. "But they seem to be different than that ... they had no thunder with it."
One possible explanation was the significant turbulence caused by the surrounding hills and Dr Gray believed the Southern Alps also had a part to play. "The Alps are playing a role in changing the environment associated with a weather front to make convection in tornadoes more likely."
Interesting to see the picture of a tornado path through the beech forest on the West Coast but I didn't catch exactly where on TV1 weather tonight.
Lots of large trees broken part way up the trunk. It was hard to see from the picture how much area was affected.
Since the area is not inhabited, no one noticed this for a few days or weeks.
Thanks very much John. Quite ragged looking, not like one of those nice smooth tornadoes like in America. Then again I guess they get raggedy ones to. Perhaps more a result of the debris?
Did you guy's see those pic's on metvuw not long ago? Had what looked like a meso (probably was) with a not so well formed funnel but there was a wall cloud on it. Looked great! Taken in the Manawatu area.
Aaron J Wilkinson wrote:Thanks very much John. Quite ragged looking, not like one of those nice smooth tornadoes like in America. Then again I guess they get raggedy ones to. Perhaps more a result of the debris?
Did you guy's see those pic's on metvuw not long ago? Had what looked like a meso (probably was) with a not so well formed funnel but there was a wall cloud on it. Looked great! Taken in the Manawatu area.
Cheers
I have a copy of the Greymouth Evening Star of March 10th which has photos of the disaster. The one that impressed me most was a bit of "4 by2" impalled into a car tyre. I see if I can download that picture.
Robin Scott who took that photo has given me permission to reproduce it.
Re the Dart Valley tornado/Lake Wakitipu waterspout. Tornadoes/waterspouts would be extremely rare in this neck of the woods and so you would have to think they were the same storm
