Who are you guys?

[jamie]

Question - who is our youngest frequent poster and who is the oldest?

[Orion]

.

[Tornado Tim]

For the youngest: I have a suspicion its David, I am a few months older than him

[Mwill301]

As a new member I just thought I'd say hi. I have just turned 18 and live in Brissie QLD but have a massive interest in New Zealand (and its outdoors/weather in fact). So just thought I'd say hi and all before I make any posts.
Monty

[Manukau heads obs]

Good first post Monty

[David]

Hi Monty, and welcome to the forum!

[Tornado Tim]

Welcome to the forum Monty

[Inactive User]

Hello! I'm one of those longtime lurkers and figured I'd introduce myself before I start to hopefully contribute something soon.

1. Whats your real name: Rebekah

2. How old are you: 27

3. Which city are you from: Lived on Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands the last 2 years; before that 5 years in Norman, Oklahoma...originally from Washington State in the US. But moving to Wellington in T-44 days!

4. Are you a resident in NZ: Nope, US citizen, but moving soon to NZ!

5. What do you do for a crust: Meteorologist. Currently forecast for Kwajalein Atoll on a US Army base in the Marshall Islands. Will start work at MetService in a few weeks.

6. Hobbies: storm chasing, scuba diving, hiking, fishing, photography, stamp collecting

7. How long have you been interested in the weather: Since I was a kid living in Seattle and met my first weather forecaster

8. What got you interested: Biggest nudge towards meteorology was when I was 12 years old and saw my first tornado--a weak thing, but passed right past my family's farm and I was terrified. Never wanted to be that scared of anything again so dove into studying storms. Didn't take it seriously as a career until as a geography university student I went storm chasing for the first time in Oklahoma in 2005 and fell in love, and decided to go there for graduate school in meteorology.

9. What aspect of the weather interests you: severe storms, tornadoes, hail, lightning (my focus in grad school)...love a good snow storm provided I don't have to be anywhere in a hurry...love rain, and lots of it

10. What is it that you like about this forum: First found out about the forum over 3 years ago while storm chasing in the US Plains with Willoughby, and I think he was the first Kiwi I've met. Finally decided to join when I started to frequent the forum a little more after finding I'd be moving to NZ. Have been learning great things from you all about New Zealand weather (and some model sites I hadn't previously been aware of), further helping my research and preparation (and excitement). Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding as I delve further into the wonderful challenges of learning more about New Zealand weather and forecasting.

PS -- Looking forward to some interesting weather upon the move--warm with the occasional trade wind shower year-round gets a little old sometimes. Wish I was there already for the wintry storm you got this week!

[Orion]

Welcome, Bekah

[David]

Welcome to the forum Rebekah! Is your upcoming Metservice job a general meteorologist position or do you get to be on the severe weather team

[Manukau heads obs]

cool that you went storm chasing with Foggy
did he let you eat any of his McDonald burgers he stashes in the car door comparment for when he gets hungry later?

[tgsnoopy]

Welcome to Willo's NZ Weather Forum Rebekah.

Irony for me is, we only once went into a McD's in the 5 weeks we were there. A Toilet stop, Feeling a bit guilty about us using their bathrooms without buying a meal, I ordered and paid for a shake, but the guy talking to me about the storms (One disadvantage of wearing team T-Shirts I guess.) and the other staff listening in on the conversation meant I bolted from there before they'd made my shake. This was due to the sudden arrival of hail. We subsequently sheltered next door in a Sonic.

If for some reason Bekah looks vaguely familiar

cool that you went storm chasing with Foggy
did he let you eat any of his McDonald burgers he stashes in the car door compartment for when he gets hungry later?

LOL, Willo please say you didn't.

[Inactive User]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I will be a general meteorologist at first, working through the public, aviation, and marine departments, but they said they would likely steer me towards the severe weather department before long as that's right up my alley.

Haha, we went to sooooo many McDonald's!!! One day (El Reno OK 31/5) we started and ended the day hanging out at the SAME McDonald's in Chickasha. Luckily about the only food that we usually left around in the car was protein bars and bananas. Lol, too bad about missing the shake! Sonic has decent fruit smoothies though too!

[Willoughby]

cool that you went storm chasing with Foggy
did he let you eat any of his McDonald burgers he stashes in the car door comparment for when he gets hungry later?

LOL!! I've stopped that a little, but it sure does come in handy on long evenings.

Welcome, Rebekah!

[Thunder]

Weclome to the forum and NZ soon. More thunderstorm made people the better

[moylanr]

Hi all - I've appreciated your good comments over the last couple of years since I stumbled across this forum.

1) What's your real name: Richard Moylan

2) How old are you: 47 and might stop there

3) Which city are you from: Born at an early age in Ashburton, started a BE in Christchurch 1984, and despite suggestions from Carmen to move the family to Nelson after a few thousand aftershocks I'm still in Christchurch

4) Are you a resident in NZ: Yes

5) What do you do for a crust: Planning for the power network in Christchurch for the last 5 years. Prior to that engineering & asset management at the council

6) Hobbies: Walks to rivers/waterfalls, Pictionary/games. Aspirationally one day there might be room to unpack the large trainset again. We have children aged 17, 15, 13, 11, 4 so...

7) How long have you been interested in the weather: decades in terms of dry commute cycling and generally regarding the dryness of summer with respect to demand on the council water supply (which increased by a factor of 10 in north east Christchurch due to garden hosing over summer), and specifically for power forecasting for the last 4 years

8} What got you interested: partly the need to know combined with an analytical appetite for optimising the use of data

9) What aspect of the weather interests you:- cloud (& sometimes snow) for power load, rain for cycling

10) What is it that you like about this forum:- humour, the excitement of the weather chase, useful observations from around the country - particularly Canterbury and to the south eg Andy in Alex Often focussed south of here as that can give more clues as to bad weather heading our way.

____________________
Further to my post yesterday in the NIWA thread - there was no rain here last evening. I know that's only one sample point but it fits the impression I've built up since looking at various sources over the last couple of years (which dont include any models). I've summarised below. I'm interested in being corrected

I'm "forecasting" that I'll get home dry today.

Yesterday the NIWA service indicated I could get wet biking home after work today. Currently it shows 1.3 mm rain later this evening ie arrival time has been delayed.

Four other sources I checked forecast no rain later today, but two out of three different metservice feeds show rain (one has 1.3mm, the other 1.6mm).

A] "Best" forecast depends on whether you need hourly accuracy over the next 5 to 10 hrs for forecasting power load, or heads up for severe weather over the next 1 to 10 days, or deciding whether to cycle to work if you want to get home dry.

B] Computer generated, unmoderated forecasts are not best in any of these cases. Human forecasters are better I have been told otherwise by some professional forecasters - so maybe one day the modelling/computing could become best at the 1st case (short term power load)

C] For the 2nd and 3rd case you need to keep an eye on how the forecast develops leading up to your decsion point, as the forecasts can vary quite a bit for a particular point in time for a given location. Seeing how the weather is developing over time and space is necessary.

Just after 5 pm yesterday the NIWA forecast had shifted back to show a wet ride home , one of the metservice feeds that had said "dry" had changed to a chance of wet, and one of the metservice feeds that had said 1.6mm had changed to 0mm. The other metservice feed remained "wet" so inconsistent from the same supplier

MeteoGroup showed dry (moderated feed) , 0.03 per hour for several hours (computer feed)

Blue Skies remained consistently dry

[Karliosis]

Greetings everyone
I've been following the forum for around a year now, and although an infrequent poster I visit very regularly, so I figure I may as well introduce myself

1) Name: Karl Hill

2) Age: 20

3) City: Born and bred in Christchurch, however I have strong ties to family from Karamea (north of Westport)

4) Resident in NZ: Yes

5) Job: Currently unemployed, studying a BSc majoring in Geopgraphy at the University of Canterbury and due to complete my degree in 2014. The weather systems paper I did this year (2013) was particularly enjoyable

6) Hobbies: Weather (naturally ), cycling, music, computers

7) How long I have been interested in the weather: As long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of thunderstorms, but I think the real turning point was one new years maybe 10-15 years ago (I can't remember exactly) when on holiday in Karamea we had 3 days of nearly continuous isolated thunderstorms. I was captivated to say the least.

8.) What got me interested: Already sort of explained above, but basically early childhood experiences.

9)Aspects of the weather that interest me: All aspects, however is is the extremities which interest me the most. In particular thunderstorms as well as snow.

10) What I like about this forum: The diversity of members in terms of weather interests and of course the great amount of weather knowledge, discussion and passion found here.

I'll try and keep this updated as necessary - assuming I remember

Cheers, Karl

[MarinPitton]

1. Name : Marin
2. Age : 27
3. City : Zadar / Croatia
4. Resident in NZ : Yes
5. Job : Photographer
6. Hobbies : Storm chasing, weather and landscape photography
7. How long I have been interested in the weather : Since 1997..I always liked something different..unusual..so storms started to fascinate me as I was little kid..then I saw the movie "Twister" and got totaly inlove in storms..till now nothing change And then in 2010 started to photographing storms and from then photography and weather is inseparate thing for me..
8. What got me interested : As I already wrote movie "Twister" from 1996 and desire for something new..different..
9. Aspects of the weather that interest me : Everything that is wild about weather..lightnings..waterspouts..tornadoes..shelf clouds..
10. What I like about this forum : Well I'm new here so I didnt have chance to meet people jet but as far I can see you guys are great company and this fact that all around the world you can find same minded people about weather is the best part of this

[tgsnoopy]

Welcome Marin, I hope maybe we can meet in the US chasing supercells one day

[Richard]

Welcome Karl and Marin

[Orion]

Welcome!

[MarinPitton]

Welcome Marin, I hope maybe we can meet in the US chasing supercells one day

maybe

Thanks everyone!

[C-Nimbus]

Good to see this thread is still going I remember when i devised this thread many years ago (I was the first poster in this thread) and i wasn't sure if it would take off. Have not been of the Wx forum for some time, but am glad to see its still going, and that everyone is soooo nice to each other. I am part of other forums for things that interest me, and 9 times out of 10 it just becomes a slinging match.

Maybe us weather g**ks have got something that most don't

[ben g]

1- Ben Gundry
2/3- 30 (already ?!), north shore in Auckland
4- takapuna born, lived close by my whole life.
5- builder by trade, but after working for my self for the last 10 years building have given it up(most risk and responsibility of all the trade but paid the least?!)
A year ago I started working in the company my dad started 40 years ago doing concrete construction,earth works and foundations, started at the bottom again:s
but it's gota be done, concrete & building are quite different, also I want to show the guys I'm not soft!
We are so busy we could take on at least 6 more guys, but they are hard to find
It allows me to "experience" a lot more weather than I could hope
The guys know the nastier it gets, the happier I get, they all think I'm mad...

6-diving,sailing, fishing, drinking rum on boats, wood work, doing up a classic kauri launch, amateur metal casting, built but haven't really used a 3d printer... Give anything a go... need more time..
7 - 1997 but likely long before that.
8- cyclones Drena and Fergis in 1997, lived very close to the beach then, watching the beach late at night from my room, with the spray from the waves hitting the sea wall going well higher than the light posts. Waves coming up the road. The amount of sand washed away, it's only just got back to pre 1997 levels a year or 2 ago... Never forget how annoyed I was at mum for basically locking me in so I couldn't sneak closer to watch...

9- severe weather,cyclones, heavy rain, flooding, strong wind and it's effects on the coast and waves.
Also since I'm outside all day it makes sense to know why the weather does what it does..
When predicting the days weather is easy, when it's hard.
The thing I love about weather also is we are so good at forecasting MOST of the time, then nature throws a curve ball.. The predicted epic rain doesn't happen, the predicted small low that bombs quicker than MS can get word out to public.
10- like minded people keeping us updated, I learn a lot, also the heads up on upcoming events, with out the hype!

Been meaning to do this for yonks

Also subscribe to my youtube I put chase vids up ( and other junk!)
Www.YouTube.com/armsmerchant

[Manukau heads obs]

It allows me to "experience" a lot more weather than I could hope
The guys know the nastier it gets, the happier I get, they all think I'm mad...

welcome to the club, LOL