Strong W flow (thunder, gales, heavy rain) Aug 25 - Sep 3

[David]

Should send them to NZ Herald Steven, might go on the back page where they often have pictures!!

[photosearch]

Excellent photos Steven!!

[spwill]

Nice lightning show over Central Auckland and NorthShore, great to come home to a Storm .
Excellent photos NZstorm

I took some photos but they are poor should have done better

[Vertigo]

was trying to post from mt eden via phone, but it wouldnt cooperate.. great show! the sky tower really took a beating tonight. that triple strobe CG was one of the best ive ever seen!

[Nev]

Great stuff Steven

One of the best lightning shows here for a while. One rumble was so intense, the entire house shook - scared the bejeezus outta me - immediately unplugged the computer.

Got 10mm from that little lot.

[jamie]

if only it wasnt the last week of uni and i didnt have assignments coming out of my ears and tests to study for i would have been at home and probably shot up mt eden for a better view.

[JP.]

That is awesome. I love a good storm.. Pity the alps protect canterbury from so much of that westerly stuff. Hope everyone enjoyed the show

[spwill]

Here is a shot of some distant lightning in the west early in the evening.

[Brassnz]

I was lucky enough to be in Takapuna for tonight's show - best I've seen in ages!

[Storm Struck]

Hmmm some sneaky jeeky changed the title , well i hope we get some thunderstorms too atleast by this time next week.
Second night in a row for you Auckland fellas, lucky indeed .
Looks like a crop of thunderstorms should be hitting the west coast about now, even possibly one for Nelson again.

[Thunder]

Great photo's guys! Ahh the feeling of getting lightning on camera, awesome!

Aaron

[Manukau heads obs]

great photos of the sky tower getting hit!
it was like day light here with the sheet lightning at times!
we got some heavy steady rain

now blowing hard from the west here...woke me up....(2:30am , LOL)

[tgsnoopy]

Another very powerful thunder clap at about 10.45pm last night. I'd just hit the hay, but it was a solitary clap and again I wasn't motivated enough to get out of bed.

Text messages rolled in from friends, but only for the one event.

I'm starting to feel we might get a good season this year

Maybe I'd better splurge on that new camera now (Canon Powershot SX1-IS cause it also does 1080p video at up to 40x optical zoom, hopefully fantastic for catching lightning) after all.

[Nev]

Excerpt from this morning's NZ Herald about the previous night's T-Storm...

'Lightning strike wrecks home'
4:00AM Thursday Aug 27, 2009
...A bolt of lightning destroyed a concrete wall and steps at a house in Tauranga, throwing debris into the air. "I used to work in Belfast and the only thing I've heard that loud was explosives," said homeowner Sam Johnston. "Inside ... papers flew in the air, and socket points blew off the wall across the living room, all melted." Power at his family's home was off for more than 12 hours, and he expected he would have to replace all of his phone cables.

Also that story tgsnoopy mentioned from the Bay of Plenty Times...

'Storm blasts out windows, cuts power to 8500 homes'
.

[Richard]

wow thats amazing Nev,i love a good storm but not when it starts doing that kind of damage

[Dale]

Wait till they rip your power and phone lines down on your acerage and you have to fork out $6k to replace the lot! Thats when I dont like them

Otherwise top show last night.. windy enough now to blow a dog off its chain.. and the chain along with it!

[tgsnoopy]

Wait till they rip your power and phone lines down on your acreage and you have to fork out $6k to replace the lot! That's when I don't like them

Surely insurance would have taken care of the $$?

[Dale]

It was a 1 off event and yes we were insured to some degree, but when youre talking about 300m of 3 phase lines and 4 telephone lines in.. after the first pole, the onus is (was) on the owners.. some energex rubbish at the time..
I'm sure there was a write up about that Supercell that stuck, will try and track it down.

[David]

Nice to have a thunderstorm again, but out this way it wasn't really anything compared to the 28th June storm!

[NZstorm]

Looking like another round of big thunderstorm dynamics crosses NZ late weekend/Monday. Too far out to put details on it.
Looks a bit unstable over the west of the SI today too.

[Tornado Tim]

Yes Sunday / Monday is looking good too:
Take from the graph what you want as is it still too far away.

[DT-NZ]

Steven, awesome images spectacular - thank's for the links to articles Nev take care.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

More spectacular thunderstorms and heavy rain again in Westport last night and raining hard there currently as am in touch with family over there at the moment. It is being described as "major rain" falling all night and still falling heavily. I am letting them know to watch out for Sunday/Monday and have been all week. It looks very bad for the westcoast of the south. I heard yesterday that the Waimakiriri brige was shut and still remains shut (im sure this must be the old one) due to high river levels. Tomorrows high forecast is 21 degrees now. At the moment a glorious day and 15 degrees with a light Norwester

[Dale]

Just heard from the ol girl in Dunollie, backing up exactly what you said above Mark. And shes out looking at more propertys today
Also was told that Stevens images of the skytower being hit last night made it onto the morning TV news.. well done mate

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Its gone very overcast out there from the west now and down to 15 degrees. Looking at the radar looks like some rain has spilt over the main divide again and on its way over so may have some brief sporadic rain.