CB tops east of Auckland

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Thu 03/04/2003 16:14

Thursday
I noticed a cb line out to the east of Auckland today, quite distant but
clearly observable. Some very large cells going up within this line.
The NOAA satellite shows the cb's were actually 150km away. Just goes
to show how far away the weather can be observed.

http://satellite.landcareresearch.co.nz ... d03043.jpg

tich · Unread post by **tich** » Thu 03/04/2003 21:18

Cbs can certainly look spectacular even from a great distance. I vividly remember a big cb to the east of Chch back in December (you might remember it from an old weather forum thread). It turned out that the cloud was to the east of Banks Peninsula. 150km east of Auckland would be to the east of the Coromandel Peninsula - it must've been a spectacular sight from, say Whitianga.

Ben T.

Thunder · Unread post by **Thunder** » Thu 03/04/2003 22:41

Hi Ben

That Cb back in December, this photo was taken end of Nov beginning of Dec last year, so it could possibly be the one you saw that day. Although there were two that day and this was the second of them (Cb's), the first was apparently alot bigger, I can remember John Gaul on the previous forum describing it as "supercellish" looking. Here's the link:

http://64.71.131.3/~aaronco/

I think it should still work? ...... just checked it out and it didn't work, I'll try to get it up again, try it if you like though. So no photo at the moment but yes Cb's are a big thing.

Aaron Wilkinson

Manukau heads obs · Fri 04/04/2003 10:34

yup, i saw them too, over the top of the corimendal range
amazing:
visual confirmation of what the sat pic showed

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Fri 04/04/2003 17:43

I remember observing a solitary massive cb top out to SSW of Auckland many years ago, about 1995. The cb looked like a supercell and hardly moved from its position. On the news that night came the story that New Plymouth had been flooded by a Thunderstorm with 150mm recorded in a few hours.

The cloud I had been observing was 230km distant.

GraemeWi · Unread post by **GraemeWi** » Sat 05/04/2003 14:50

Very similar - I've seen big CB's from Glenfield and the radar shows they were on a level with Cape Brett.

A quick formula for working out how far away you can see a cloud top above the horizon (haze permitting!) is:

Squareroot ( top height of the cloud in meters / 0.06752) = km

Ideally you'd want to be a bit closer and have better eyesight than me!

G

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Sat 05/04/2003 17:04

The new Plymouth storm observed from Auckland occured on 21st April 1995. I've just looked back at the archive. The northern suburbs were heaviest hit with rainfall rates reaching 45mm an hour. The airport recorded 151mm. According to Bob Mcdavitt the storm had developed over the Tasman sea and stalled over westernTaranaki.

NZ Thunderstorm Soc · Sun 06/04/2003 00:37

Looks like an active and exciting night electrically around the and off the Kapiti coast this evening. Anyone on hand for the lightning show????

JohnGaul
NZTS

GreggWard · Unread post by **GreggWard** » Sun 06/04/2003 11:56

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:Looks like an active and exciting night electrically around the and off the Kapiti coast this evening. Anyone on hand for the lightning show????

JohnGaul
NZTS

John,

I could see the lightning from Palmerston North, as it was quite clear last night, up until about midnight. It put on quite a show.

Gregg

NZ Weather Forum

CB tops east of Auckland

CB tops east of Auckland

Hi There - Cb pics