NZ Weather Forum

I went out to our new property near West Melton today and noticed that because of the boring winter we have had so far, especially over July and August, the place is starting to look a bit dry.
Growth is being established on the paddocks but I noticed the little brook on the property was dried up, or should I say drying up because of the lack of moisture needed to keep the stream flowing.
We need some good rain here so that summer will be not a very dry one.
What the future holds I am not sure as weather patterns have become quite erratic over the past few years.
Will we see another December like last year or will it be January, when we move our house there???

JohnGaul
NZTS

in the same boat up this way too
july was the only month with average rain since last december or so....
unless we get alot of rain in the last week of august, which is unlikely as its only likely to be showers on and off after the first rain eposide, then august will be another dry month (up this way)
its like an elnino in some respects, but not like one in alot of otehr resepects

blame it on global warming (check out thawing in alaska and anatartic peninisular lately...its seems to be here...

NIWA suggest a wetter than normal spring is on the cards for Canterbury. But they were predicting a milder than normal spring too, which is a contradiction as rain often comes with lower temps in the east of the South Island.

As for Northern NZ, a drought may well be on the cards. Rainfall from these westerlies has been light recently and I suspect that will be the trend.

Digging trenches today for cable laying, I noticed that the ground wasn't all that bad as far as moisture goes, but then it could be worse off if the predicted(by me) the 'bad' weather dosen't come by the middle of this month

JohnGaul
NZTS

The NZ Scanners group this morning carries a report of a tornado overnight in the Hokitika area, a roof blown off and fire responding to assist?? Where did that come from?

Yeah, no thundery activity or anything. There is some lower level unstable air but up above seems stable. Another one of these non thundery tornadoes from lowish topped clouds, shear doesn't seem anything marvolous either? Oh well, another to add to the list.

Cheers

Found this on the tornado news report id say an F0-F1 at most wat others think?.
here's report.
A tornado that tore through Hokitika early this morning has left shaken residents in its wake.


The tornado was less devastating than the vicious tornado that hit Greymouth early this year but caused damage to homes and property.

Hokitika Fire Service chief fire officer Wayne Thompson said the brigade was called out about 12.45am as one resident lost part of their roof and also sent another appliance out as calls came in from distraught residents with smashed windows.

The tornado picked up a truck parked outside motels on the main street and dumped it on its side and continued on to smash windows in houses throughout Hokitika.

After passing through Hokitika the tornado made its way to Westland Milk Products where it ran out of strength.

Operations manager Hugh Little said no damage had been caused at the dairy factory.

Cheers
JASON.

Hokitika winds as observed at midnight last night.

PPBB 54113 93614
90012 02021 35031 34529 90357 34027 33025 33025 909// 32020 914//
32058 9248/ 29056 26567 9349/ 22508 30517 945// 28545=|

Surface 020 21kts
1000ft 350 31kts
2000ft 345 29kts
3000ft 340 27kts
5000ft 330 25kts

Some shear there.

My Bad

Yes NZstorm, looks to of been some reasonable shear there. When I commented on shear above I pulled up a skew-t from READY for midday today as it's the closest one I could get to 12z Sunday night (the models had updated at this point). I shouldn't of been so lazy and should've had a look at the archived skew-t for midnight on Sunday, of course 12 hours is going to make a difference Aaron! doh!. And yes, it shows better conditions regarding shear. And also, it may not have been any more unstable but clouds may have got higher in the atmophere by the looks of things

Cheers

NZstorm wrote:Hokitika winds as observed at midnight last night.

PPBB 54113 93614
90012 02021 35031 34529 90357 34027 33025 33025 909// 32020 914//
32058 9248/ 29056 26567 9349/ 22508 30517 945// 28545=|

Surface 020 21kts
1000ft 350 31kts
2000ft 345 29kts
3000ft 340 27kts
5000ft 330 25kts

Some shear there.

Yes, but...

Its hardly dramatic is it, I mean if tornadoes always developed with a shear profile like that then there would be dozens of them all over NZ every day. It looks more like to me a barrier jet at 1000ft (note how the speeds drop off from 1000ft up) which probably got sucked down to the surface rather than a true (rotating) tornado.

TonyT wrote:

NZstorm wrote:Hokitika winds as observed at midnight last night.

PPBB 54113 93614
90012 02021 35031 34529 90357 34027 33025 33025 909// 32020 914//
32058 9248/ 29056 26567 9349/ 22508 30517 945// 28545=|

Surface 020 21kts
1000ft 350 31kts
2000ft 345 29kts
3000ft 340 27kts
5000ft 330 25kts

Some shear there.

Yes, but...

Its hardly dramatic is it, I mean if tornadoes always developed with a shear profile like that then there would be dozens of them all over NZ every day. It looks more like to me a barrier jet at 1000ft (note how the speeds drop off from 1000ft up) which probably got sucked down to the surface rather than a true (rotating) tornado.

So you think it was a downburst? or microburst?

To create a downburst at the ground, the downward (downdraft) speeds in the thunderstorm must be unusually high, and this downward flowing air must penetrate close to the ground. These conditions can be met when the boundary layer air is relatively dry, and when there is plenty of falling precipitation

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:
Yes the Alps had that sort of "Wet" look about them today with that rainband along it. However, it looked too shallow for thunderstorm development. You could see the foothills through eastward protubering showers.

JohnGaul
NZTS

Maybe there were thunderstorms? The MetService lightning tracker shows a bit of activity in that area.

JohnGaul
NZTS

I think that little cluster of thunderstorms was within the past five days but not today. The metservice tracker holds data for 5 day's at a time.

Cheers

Quite a bit of heavy rain on the SI West Coast, today tomorrow and Thursday. Heaviest rain moving up from Hokitika now with strong NNE

not much for here tho'

JohnGaul
NZTS