Tornado Stills

Thunder · Unread post by **Thunder** » Tue 20/04/2004 15:24

Just though I might put up these of Johns Tornado footage in Oct 02. Enjoy! Admitidly not the best of quality but ok.

C-Nimbus · Unread post by **C-Nimbus** » Wed 21/04/2004 10:04

Thats awesome!!

where was it, and was anyone injured or anything, cos it looks like theres houses nearby!!

Weather Watcher · Unread post by **Weather Watcher** » Wed 21/04/2004 10:25

Very nice stills. Is this is the October 2002 tornado near Taitapu?

Thunder · Unread post by **Thunder** » Wed 21/04/2004 12:01

Yes weather watcher that was the 2002 27th Oct tornado near Tai Tapu. No one was injured or anything and it was actually a wee bit more in the distance behind that hill. That hill is part of the Halswell Quary / Kennedys Bush Rd.

The first shot there is actually a funnel cloud which could of almost been a Tornado, John shot that earlier in the day before the main tornado. It was out west I guess and quite possibly over houses. But I'm guessing if people were near it they would've only noticed increased wind speed and might not of even seen it to rain etc falling and they would've all been in there houses.

Here's a little (hmmm??...mayby big) report thing I compiled on that event:

Spring 2002 27th October - First report: Two vortexes on this day, one was a funnel cloud were as the other one was most likely a tornado. The tornado travelled N/NE from the Irwell to Springston area through to about a kilometre short of Tai Tapu at about 1:30pm this afternoon on a line of a very active thunderstorm development in a West to East fashion across the Canterbury Plains. I spotted a minor funnel westward from that area about 20 minutes previous. The minor funnel was videoed from my spot at the time near Victoria Park on the Port Hills but the sky was rather hazy, so the actual funnel was hard to spot. Thanks to John Gaul for that extract. Second report: Funnel cloud was seen by John Gaul of the New Zealand Thunderstorm Society near the south-western side of ChCh City viewed from Victory Park. The other vortex/tornado looks to have touched down somewhere between Tai Tapu and Lincoln (possibly Ladbrooks), ChCh. Was also viewed by John Gaul and many others. No major damage was reported, only perhaps a few small trees downed and an eye witness account by a â€˜Thomas Peake aged 11â€™ said, â€œIt was picking up branches the size of your armâ€. So a F0 rating was given. Hail on the same day was up to golf ball sized / 50 cent coin sized and caused damage to some crops. Some slightly smaller hail on the same day blocked drains at Hornby Mall causing 10 out of 45 businesses at the complex to get sodden carpets with damaged stock. Up to 1,000 panes of glass were broken in seven glasshouses on one Christchurch tomato farm during a hailstorm. By Aaron Wilkinson. Third report: 18 dents in a car from the large hail. Large box (I presume cardboard) flying through the air on the eastern side of town. A car windscreen broken by hail while driving, not sure where. Thank you Jeff Northcott from the NZ weather forum for those figures. Fourth report: You couldnâ€™t really ask for a more suitable day for heavy hail and convective development (as forecast). Several smatteringâ€™s of hail in Linwood between 1.30pm and 2pm, none heavy, but the stones quite large, mostly cone shaped, up to 17mm tall by 14mm across. Reports of hail as large as 50c pieces in some parts, which is about golf ball sized I guess. Once you start to see hailstones smashing into pieces as the hit the concrete you know its time to stay inside! Winds stayed east-northeast 15 knots right through this first event, with very clear windshear as the clouds at about 4-5000ft (I would guess) were clearly from the west and above that from the southwest. Also, some parts of the 2-3000ft cloud were clearly moving north to south, and others east to west and southeast to northwest, so its not hard to imagine some rotation present on a scale of a few km at that sort of altitude. The second set of showers around 4-5pm produced a lot more thunder and lightning, and heavy hail, but much smaller stones. Winds remained light easterly until after the hail had eased, and only switched southwest as the rain was ending. Somehow I doubt the first storm was part of a supercell, it was easy to see it growing along with other similar clouds in the preceding hour and half, and it produced about 20 minutes of thunder with clearly no rain/hail from it, until the big stones came. However, the second set of showers was clearly part of a more organised line. One thing I did notice was the very rapid development of the clouds - from almost clear blue skies with just a hint of cumulus along the foothills at 10.30am, to big cumulus 30 mins later, to a sky full of clouds 60 mins after that, and thunder and lightning 30 mins after that. All up 2.5 hrs from the first signs of Cu development 50km away to thunder and 17mm-hail overhead! So there was certainly some serious convection taking place. Thanks Tony T from Blueskies / NZ weather forum for that info!

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Wed 21/04/2004 18:33

Hourly obs from that day at Christchurch Airport 93780 here.

http://www.wunderground.com/history/air ... story.html

My opinion on the funnels is that they almost certainly developed on convergence lines (easterly Vs westerly). It would have been interesting to see the upper wind profile for Christchurch on that day. But as far as I am aware, upper winds are not recorded in Canterbury.

Thanks for putting the photos up.

Thunder · Unread post by **Thunder** » Wed 21/04/2004 23:42

No Prob's!

And a little lightning shot from Southsore looking towards the Alps.

Andy · Unread post by **Andy** » Thu 22/04/2004 09:35

cool pics

Manukau heads obs · Sat 24/04/2004 06:56

Yes, Bravo!
Juat a side note, I know that that NZer storm chaser was chasing those latest USA tornados (i think there were 50 sighted in one day or something!) along with Greg Potter, from http://www.anythingweather.com