Active fronts and Thunderstorms, NI, 12-14th Mar

Willoughby · Unread post by **Willoughby** » Sun 11/03/2007 13:27

About time we had this system beckon on us!

The upper-low has been swirling around the northwestern Tasman Sea for some time now, combining with moisture coming in off the monsoon trough to the north around south of Fiji, we're really set with the inclinating westerlies ready pounce on this system.

Front organisation does look very messy, but it's safe to suggest we'd be getting a nice period of heavyish rain tomorrow afternoon to break the drought!

While the trough is weakening as it gets to NZ, its where the westerlies start knocking the system and deepens (110 knots in the jetstream), is where we'll get our severe weather and thunderstorms from.

Dewpoints rising to 21Â°C just around the Bay of Islands early Tues morning, enabling convection to fire up from there to the Bay Of Plenty during the morning.. note the MetService have forecasted the possibility of a 'weak tornado'. Looks like highly sufficient instability left over the upper NI on Tuesday too.

Nice to have the fresh NE today.. (had our hottest temp of the summer so far yesterday of 28C!)

Roll it on!

dija · Unread post by **dija** » Sun 11/03/2007 16:27

if it breaks my drought i,d be happy

spike_01 · Unread post by **spike_01** » Sun 11/03/2007 20:22

dija wrote:if it breaks my drought i,d be happy

Amen to that... No wet stuff here for over a month...

mikestormchaser · Unread post by **mikestormchaser** » Sun 11/03/2007 21:55

Wheres our storms down here?

we have only had one all season!

Manukau heads obs · Mon 12/03/2007 07:01

Still looking active this morning,but taking a while to get here!

Manukau heads obs · Mon 12/03/2007 18:12

the rain is doing that split thing again either side of the upper NI
arrgh!!!!
but we should get something out of it here

dija · Unread post by **dija** » Mon 12/03/2007 18:45

*CRIES* Noooooo lol
not one drop here at home yet ... 5mm in last 5 weeks, grass is staying alive just from nightly dew.
here's hoping we might get a bit tonight...
couple of pics to show how dry it is.. the joys of clay soils. when its wet its wet, when its dry its dry... no 'nice bit' in between lol

Willoughby · Unread post by **Willoughby** » Mon 12/03/2007 19:35

You'll get your rain Dija

Once the dominant flow turns exposed westerly you'll get swamped!

Hopefully that rainband to the west of Dargaville hooks round onto the Auckland region.
Should still see some convection firing up tonight north of Cape Reinga in the wake of the clearing front. (one would hope..!)

spwill · Unread post by **spwill** » Mon 12/03/2007 19:56

Looks like showery rain moving down over Northland now, have had a couple of brief showers here so far.
18-19C dewpoints currently so lets hope we get a good fall of rain tonight.

GraemeWi · Unread post by **GraemeWi** » Mon 12/03/2007 19:57

Heavy rain here now, should be moving over west Auckland now

borris89 · Unread post by **borris89** » Mon 12/03/2007 20:00

at least ur grass is still green dija!

Manukau heads obs · Mon 12/03/2007 20:19

raining nice and steady and heavy here now

C-Nimbus · Unread post by **C-Nimbus** » Mon 12/03/2007 21:40

Crazily squally and heavy rain here at the mo.

its fantastic to be outside when its like this as long as your under a cover like a carport.

no t/s yet tho

spwill · Unread post by **spwill** » Mon 12/03/2007 22:22

Nice to hear the rain on the roof, has been heavy here over the past two hours.

Edit 10.35pm I see Greylynn is showing23.4mm last hour and 32.6mm since about 7.30pm.

Rain should be finished here shortly

dija · Unread post by **dija** » Mon 12/03/2007 22:34

still waiting

Willoughby · Unread post by **Willoughby** » Mon 12/03/2007 23:18

Baro has just dropped below 1000mb for the first time this year.

RODALCO · Unread post by **RODALCO** » Tue 13/03/2007 00:52

It started to pour down around 19.35 hrs in Titirangi till 23.00 hrs.
Good solid rain and no breaks whatsoever.
There were quite a few flooding calls and PFA's, received by the NZ Fireservice all over the greater Auckland area.
It is now dry at the moment and no wind either.
Just came back from a PFA call in a resthome in Greenbay.

Wildland · Unread post by **Wildland** » Tue 13/03/2007 07:35

The 17-day dry spell was broken here at Tawa, north of Wellington this morning. After a warm night of 18 degrees, we got 3mm between 0630 and 0700. It has now eased to gentle rain with low cloud.

Manukau heads obs · Tue 13/03/2007 08:03

the drought has broken here (especialy as more rain showers coming)
28mm here

Willoughby · Unread post by **Willoughby** » Tue 13/03/2007 08:33

37mm here.. over half of that falling in under 40 minutes!!

(rain rate got up to 3.1mm/minute)

Thunderstorm chances have diminished somewhat today.
Dewpoints are around 17C, probably not enough with the slow lapse rate/warm upper air.

dija · Unread post by **dija** » Tue 13/03/2007 08:35

we've had 8.9 mm ahh well atleast its something

Manukau heads obs · Tue 13/03/2007 09:00

waiuku got 51mm (confirmed by others too)
you could see it on the rain radar it was heavier in a line down the manukau harbour....some convergence or similar....

spike_01 · Unread post by **spike_01** » Tue 13/03/2007 09:15

No rain guage here, but it has been very steady rain over night and now... Very much needed in this area...

spwill · Unread post by **spwill** » Tue 13/03/2007 10:13

37mm for central Auckland from the Front, 25mm fell in an hour.

Some heavy showers forming in the Tasman now, they look more on track for central NZ.

Dewpoints still 18-19C here.

Manukau heads obs · Tue 13/03/2007 10:48

approaching frontal line
something not see for a while!
(photo looking SSW)

more photos added...approaching front....then the heavy rain (and gusts to 30 kts at times)
first Autumn front

NZ Weather Forum

Active fronts and Thunderstorms, NI, 12-14th Mar

Active fronts and Thunderstorms, NI, 12-14th Mar

Rain in West Auckland