NZ Weather Forum

There's snow on Maungatua near Mosgiel this morning, about a quarter to maybe halfway down.

Coming into Ashburton, from the south. Once again, photography is not a strong point

^ Unpleasant bit of weather with that - around 5°C, gusty winds, rain, dark cloud overhead. Quite wintry in fact.

Hail and steady rain in Rakaia.

Heavy sleety shower in St Martins

Edit and thunder

Razor wrote: ↑Tue 18/05/2021 08:42 Heavy sleety shower in St Martins

Edit and thunder

Same in Wigram, very surprising considering MS forecast

The front was relatively dry when it came through Ashburton but it seems to have rapidly intensified just north of here. The wind is bitterly cold.

darcyplumb wrote: ↑Tue 18/05/2021 09:00 The front was relatively dry when it came through Ashburton but it seems to have rapidly intensified just north of here. The wind is bitterly cold.

Did it what! Solid hour of precipitation after a vigorous thundery arrival into ChCh. Only just showing signs of easing now. Quite a surprise package

5mm, a useful follow up to last weeks 15mm.
Temp at 6am 3 degrees
Temp at 7am 10 degrees
Temp at 10am 3 degrees

Razor wrote: ↑Tue 18/05/2021 09:56

Razor wrote: ↑Tue 18/05/2021 09:53

Did it what! Solid hour of precipitation after a vigorous thundery arrival into ChCh. Only just showing signs of easing now. Quite a surprise package

5mm, a useful follow up to last weeks 15mm.
Temp at 6am 3 degrees
Temp at 7am 10 degrees
Temp at 10am 3 degrees

I couldn’t believe it when I checked radar. We had a heavy downpour at 6am before the front and that was it. Beautiful blue sky now but the freezer door is still wide open! Wind chill would have to be below zero.

Quite a sharp short trough this morning. 500mb -32
A fair dump of snow down on the Milford rd overnight aswel.
Next cold shot is friday for the south.

Heavy shower earlier in St Albans, probably some hail in it. Mostly cleared now; can see a light dusting of snow on Mt Herbert.

Saw two flashes when out very early today at Sumner, but they seemed to be in the mid-distance looking towards the mountains. Wasn't expecting it.

P.S. GFS today brings a massive block in next week, stalls and repels the subtropical low and sends the cold air out into the Pacific. Rain for Northland/easterly surge but that would be it. EC seems to be edging that way as well.

Yawn, the inbound weather looked great at Brekky time as it came across the Waikato, looked like Jamie might have done quite well out of it. Sadly it turned pear shaped in Tauranga after doing it's business up-sloping the Kaimai Weather forcefield (very common with stuff from the West/NW). Hope Jamie did ok.

Another 3mm of brief showers here today for a monthly total of 46mm so far. Looking at GFS for the rest of the month, looks quite likely to be the driest month of the year to date.

20mm month to date here. Might get a handful more on Friday night but beyond that its lining up to be yet another month with half or less of the average monthly expectation.

93mm YTD

EC ensemble is locking onto a cut off upper tropospheric cyclonic vortex over the Tasman to finish off May. The Tasman SST's are still between 21c and 18c between NSW and the NI. Explosive recipe if it verifies.

An uneventful boring May so far, will keep a watch on the end of the month.

Glad to see the back of those cool, showery, blustery winds we've had for the last few days…

we had a nice rainbow here this morning too, very similar

Awhituobs wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 08:39 we had a nice rainbow here this morning too, very similar

Perhaps it was the same one?

TonyT wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 09:16

Awhituobs wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 08:39 we had a nice rainbow here this morning too, very similar

Perhaps it was the same one?

Is Canterbury still on track for colder then usual (at least for recent times) winter Tony? Or has the data pulled back a bit?

Bradley wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 11:01

TonyT wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 09:16

Perhaps it was the same one?

Is Canterbury still on track for colder then usual (at least for recent times) winter Tony? Or has the data pulled back a bit?

If May is any yardstick I strongly doubt it! But time will tell

Bradley wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 11:01

TonyT wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 09:16

Perhaps it was the same one?

Is Canterbury still on track for colder then usual (at least for recent times) winter Tony? Or has the data pulled back a bit?

I think it has pulled back, but the next two weeks look likely to be colder than normal for most of the country. I still think significant cold periods will be a feature of the winter and spring overall which people and the media will comment on, but whether they will be enough to skew the mean temperature significantly below the long term normal remains to be seen.

Razor wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 11:06

Bradley wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 11:01

Is Canterbury still on track for colder then usual (at least for recent times) winter Tony? Or has the data pulled back a bit?

If May is any yardstick I strongly doubt it! But time will tell

Still 10 days to go, and 10 cold ones at that. But, perhaps a good example of how a month with southwest airflow anomalies doesn't end up colder in Canterbury (gotta love that sunshine!).

TonyT wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 13:13

Razor wrote: ↑Thu 20/05/2021 11:06

If May is any yardstick I strongly doubt it! But time will tell

Still 10 days to go, and 10 cold ones at that. But, perhaps a good example of how a month with southwest airflow anomalies doesn't end up colder in Canterbury (gotta love that sunshine!).

Yeah looks like mid to high teens for all but a couple of days as we track through the rest of May for ChCh.