General February Weather

[NZstorm]

I see at 2am or so the strikes were close to me..but no cigar

Kawhia perhaps the only place to get a storm.



Looking moist with precip chances over the upper North Island for the rest of the week. Thunder later in week??

Localised heavy falls over the top of Northland tomorrow which will ease the drought.

[Manukau heads obs]

yes, it does look like the front is going to get left behind and hang around for a few days in an easterly trough

[jamie]

Yea should be a thunder day or two over the North Island over the next week.

[Rogue]

Watching forecast for Saturday and Sunday with interest

[David]

Max of just 19.5C here today, rare to get a max below 20C in Feb for Auckland. In fact, the previous lowest daily max across the last 7 Februaries for my station is 20.7C

[Nev]

Yeah, been hovering around 19C here most of the day and only briefly made it to 20.4C around 4pm. 5.0mm of heavy drizzle throughout most of the day.

[David]

GFS showing some heavy rain Thurs/Fri, hopefully we'll get a good amount this time

[einzack]

Down to a chilly 3.9°C this morning.
We certainly seem to have skipped summer entirely this year.....

[Manukau heads obs]

the next high is expected to stick around so more Feb like conditions next week

[spwill]

Current GFS shows good ingredients for afternoon heat showers/thunder over the NI Saturday, something to watch.

[katipo]

When will the wind in Christchurch swing back to the usually reliable NE ?
Should help with the Port Hills fire fighting efforts, the Westerlies of the past few days must have been a pain for them.

[TonyT]

When will the wind in Christchurch swing back to the usually reliable NE ?
Should help with the Port Hills fire fighting efforts, the Westerlies of the past few days must have been a pain for them.

Today. But the strength of the northeasterly in the next few days may be problematic. At least if the fire gets blown back over its tracks it should have little left to burn.

[TonyT]

Interesting that we got a strong whiff of smoke here in Amberley when the easterly arrived early this afternoon. The smoke must have looped around from the Port Hills, blowing out to sea on the light westerly this morning then coming back in over North Canterbury as the easterly developed. A very clear pyro-cumulus visible over the hills also.

[Skywatcher]

You can see the pyro-Cu on the rain radar.

[Bradley]

The fire has certainly really stocked up since this morning, that NE is quite strong too

[NZstorm]

Wow, that fire looks huge.

[TonyT]

Another view of the pyro-cumulus, photo credit to my brother Tim.

[Orion]

Diffuse brownish haze visible on north-eastern horizon from here in Ashburton.

[Richard]

Interesting that we got a strong whiff of smoke here in Amberley when the easterly arrived early this afternoon. The smoke must have looped around from the Port Hills, blowing out to sea on the light westerly this morning then coming back in over North Canterbury as the easterly developed. A very clear pyro-cumulus visible over the hills also.

Yes that smoke is even coming in from the east here too, i noticed it an hour ago but didnt click to it being from CHCH till you mentuned it

[Orion]

You can see the pyro-Cu on the rain radar.

Those radar images are worth preserving for posterity

[spwill]

The afternoon northeaster really cranking that fire up this afternoon unfortunately.

[Nev]

Here's one quick closeup grab of the pyro-cu at 4pm.

Pyro-Cu - MetService Chch Radar - Feb 15, 4pm.png

Also this one posted on Twitter.

Pyro-Cu - MetService Chch Radar - Feb 15, 2.30pm.jpg

Thunder081 might have movie?

[TonyT]

I might be splitting hairs here, but suspect the radar is not showing the cloud which was formed (what I would call a pyro-cumulus), but the heavier smoke particles from the fire. Maybe Tunster or someone else from MS could tell us what is the smallest sized particle the radar would reflect off.

[NZstorm]

The radar will be detecting ash.

[Weather Watcher]

Correct, the radar will be detecting smoke particles or ash. Based on investigations into the 2012 Tongariro (Te Maari) volcanic eruptions, the radars are able to detect particles down to about 0.5 to 1.0mm diameter.