Possible Thunderstorms 2-3rd March

[Tornado Tim]

A period of unstable air will steadily move eastwards over NZ tomorrow and remain around for 2 days.
Skew-T charts suggest the air temp may be between -13 to -15°C and with that some decent surface heating will need to occur to get things going.
Looking a cloud cover which will determine wether this setup will flop or not seems to be ok at this point (ok is not good however) as it expected Waikato and Auckland are going get mostly cloudy conditions
The Upper lift is there as Lifted index values are around -2 which will be favorable but Its forecasted we have a NNW breeze.
Moisture it seems will be here (made by the rather northerly flow), 16°C DP is forecast for around the area.
It seems the moisture will be abundant all the way up to 700 mb which will give any storms that may eventuate some base.
Here is a skew-t chart for reference:
So really a case of wait and see on the day..... LOL

[NZstorm]

Looking at 00Z gfs looks like Taranaki is in with a reasonable thunder chance due to the front. Also Northland could see a convergence thunderstorm. Auckland and Waikato will likely miss out although we should get some frontal rain at night.

[spwill]

Some heavy showers over the top of Northland currently drifting south, some thundery weather showing up as well.

[DT-NZ]

Some heavy showers over the top of Northland currently drifting south, some thundery weather showing up as well.

light shower's here in Doubtless Bay region @ mo - cooler to.

edit reason(s): correcting area and locality from bay region to Doubtless Bay region in italics.

[DT-NZ]

Severe Thunderstorm Outlook
http://metservice.com/national/warnings ... rm-outlook

Valid to: 12:00am Wednesday 3 March 2010
Issued at: 8:30am Tuesday 2 March 2010

Scattered afternoon thunderstorms are expected to develop about Northland and possibly northern parts of the Auckland region this afternoon from cloud buildups. Localised heavy rain will accompany these thunderstorms. Rainfall rates should be mostly in the 10-25mm/hr range, however there is a possibility rates could exceed 25mm/hr in a few inland places. A low risk of severe thunderstorms has been drawn on the chart to indicate this risk. There is a lower risk of thunderstorms about Auckland city, northern Waikato, Coromandel Peninsula and Great Barrier Island in the late afternoon and evening as indicated on the chart.

Elsewhere in the North Island, there is a low risk of a few afternoon and evening thunderstorms about Hawkes Bay from cloud build-ups, and also about eastern Bay of Plenty this evening and tonight. Localised heavy rain will accompany any thunderstorms that do develop in these areas.

In the South Island, a front will move northwards through Fiordland and South Westland in the afternoon and evening with rain. There is a low risk of a few embedded thunderstorms associated with this front.

Another front lying over central New Zealand may bring some short spells of heavy rain to the Marlborough Sounds, Wellington and Taranaki in the afternoon or evening, but no thunderstorms are expected.

[NZstorm]

Looks like there were a few strikes over upper Northland this afternoon but the instability for lightning is gone now, just some rain. Hope we can score some of it in Auckland this evening.