NZ Weather Forum

Believe there was 4 not 3 tornadoes Foggy, although Im not 100% sure of number. Also Marble size Hail.

That is an insane amout of strikes going off there. Also a another storm is situated further south by Levin?? (I think) also on the West Coast.

looks like Hamilton should be getting something decent about now.. going by the radar

UNBELIEVEABLE forked lightning here!! And extremely loud cracks of thunder, picked me up my feet!!

Wahoooo so much CG and IC too! It really shook the place up! Accompanied by very heavy rain, strong winds, but not 'squally'.

Was thinking it would bypass Hamilton when it was moving up the west coast near Pirongia but it suddenly moced eastwards and Thor certainly yelled at us too!!

Looks interesting for Western Auckland soon too!!

Woohooo! go Foggy hehe.. yesh that area has fired up a bit out west
its a will it, wont it, will it, wont it? will it? afternoon lol more solid Cu is moving in from the west now

20c, dewpoint 17c, westerly breeze, very sticky.

Rotorua now and soon Tauranga getting some of the action!!

Some NZHN METARs
SPECI 060100Z 30016G27KT 270V330 15KM VCSHTS SCT020CB BKN035 18/16 Q1005

SPECI 060036Z 29013KT 260V330 2000 SHRATS FEW020CB BKN030 19/16 Q1004 RMK LIGHTNING OBS TO N AND W

SPECI 060000Z 32018KT 15KM VCSHTS FEW020CB BKN035 22/15 Q1004 RMK CB'S TO S AND W. LIGHTNING OBS

SPECI 052331Z 30014G24KT 15KM VCSHTS FEW025CB BKN042 22/15 Q1004 RMK CBS TO S AND W. LIGHTNING SIGHTED. FRONT APPROACHING

Incoming! first thunder heard from over west auckland...

i got a good number of strikes recorded with my counter, but nothing all that close
ricky should be getting hit now!

we got a usefull 6mm in 2 short sharp heavy tropical type downpours

Old mate Nick called me up before said he has heard a couple thunder claps just north of where he lives which is in Loburn.
Looks interesting on 4pm radar bit of pink maybe hail.
Light rain falling here 14C NE wind very light.
That cell is still going looks to be just West of Coromandel so yeh over Auckland.
Love to see a round up of pictures later guys.
EDIT.... Heavy rain here now.
Cheers
Jason.

Jasestrm wrote:Old mate Nick called me up before said he has heard a couple thunder claps just north of where he lives which is in Loburn.
Looks interesting on 4pm radar bit of pink maybe hail.
Light rain falling here 14C NE wind very light.
That cell is still going looks to be just West of Coromandel so yeh over Auckland.
Love to see a round up of pictures later guys.
EDIT.... Heavy rain here now.
Cheers
Jason.

Send some rain down here Jason. Actually send a LOT of rain down here!

Yes, an interesting storm over the west of the NI today. Got a nice view of it from near Huntly and got back to Auckland in time to be dumped on by the storm here.

I have had a quick glance at the upper wind data from Invercargill Airport
yesterday and it does not appear to support a supercell type of thunderstorm. Morning winds were light through a deep layer. The evening sounding shows winds had strengthened with a low level easterly but mid level data was missing. The Invercargill Airport is just 25km away from the area that got the tornadoes/hail.

just add
Hail stones in that photo are around 2cm.
Tornadoes are very rare in Southland so it is an interesting report.

Tornado in Rotorua this afternoon

NewsTalk ZB
6 December 2005

A freak tornado has ripped through a suburb in Rotorua. It happened just after 2pm. Residents in the Fordlands area say they saw sheets of iron fly through the air. They say the tornado came and went very quickly.

Cuddles Childcare on Sunset Road had its roof blown off. Manager Sarah Rowe says it had started to rain so they brought the children inside and then the tornado hit soon after, making doors fly open and windows shake. She says the children are all safe. Ms Rowe says a house next to the daycare centre had a tree fall on it.

NZstorm wrote:just add
Hail stones in that photo are around 2cm.
Tornadoes are very rare in Southland so it is an interesting report.

The report is interesting. You say the middle layer data was missing?
I say they could be either funnel clouds or "twisty-turny" things,rotational scud or stratus. 2cms is a large hailstone. Pity no one was on location to record with a camera/cell=phone whatever.

JohnGaul
NZTS

In keeping a record of tornado/funnel cloud sightings in NZ, should reports like that one in the Southland Times be included??? The report is vague and there is no verification.


If there was a tornado in Southland it would have been the 'spin up type' commonly refered to as 'landspouts'. The rotation is not sourced from within the thundercloud, rather from under the thundercloud near ground level. So John, I agree with your theory.

A good example of a recent non-supercell tornado (landspout) was the Greymouth tornado.[/quote]

NZstorm wrote:In keeping a record of tornado/funnel cloud sightings in NZ, should reports like that one in the Southland Times be included??? The report is vague and there is no verification.

That's a very good question...

I sure some of the 'mini-tornado' reports in the media are actually downbursts. For example, the report of a mini-tornado hitting a school in Rotorua on last nights TV news. Was that really a tornado? No one actually saw a tornado, and from what I could see on TV all it did was break some branches on a tree. Sounds more like a decent squall or downburst to me. I believe both the public and the media are too quick to attribute any thunderstorm related wind damage to "mini-tornadoes".

Also, a lot of the weak funnel clouds (like the one in 03Stormchasers photo from earlier this week) are not really that significant and should only count if they reach the ground and/or have a lifetime in the order of minutes rather than seconds.

Just my 2 cents worth....

Weather Watcher wrote: I sure some of the 'mini-tornado' reports in the media are actually downbursts. For example, the report of a mini-tornado hitting a school in Rotorua on last nights TV news. Was that really a tornado? No one actually saw a tornado, and from what I could see on TV all it did was break some branches on a tree. Sounds more like a decent squall or downburst to me. I believe both the public and the media are too quick to attribute any thunderstorm related wind damage to "mini-tornadoes".

Also, a lot of the weak funnel clouds (like the one in 03Stormchasers photo from earlier this week) are not really that significant and should only count if they reach the ground and/or have a lifetime in the order of minutes rather than seconds.

Just my 2 cents worth....

Quite right re the second point, I believe only about 5% of funnel clouds turn into tornadoes.

And yes, here in Hamilton they were very quick to call it a tornado on 16th Sep, when it easily could have been a microburst.

As for the hail in Southland, we had 'very large' hail dropping for a time before the very high winds, lasting just 4 seconds, as I got outside it had all been washed by very heavy rain

I agree with the assertion that most funnel clouds arn't significant.
And yes, microburst damage can be confused with tornadoes.

What did the Met Service label the Hamilton 15th event as? On my website I have the following.

There is a case for this wind damage being the result of a microburst (locally intense wind gust) rather than a tornado. The very unstable, squally environment on the night would have favoured locally high wind gusts as well as tornadoes. But the very narrow damage path is suggestive of a tornado. I estimate the wind strengths required to do such damage would be in excess of 80knots or 150k/m.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3504062a11,00.html

Here are some interesting quotes from the Stuff article regarding yesterdays "mini tornado" in Rotorua...

"The rain came hard and then it was like two seconds or something ... We really didn't see it coming"

"The mini tornado came out of nowhere and was gone as suddenly as it appeared".

"Neither Rotorua police nor the city's Fire Service received any calls about the mini tornado".

Sounds very much like a microburst to me.

Here's an interesting story on Stuff about the lightning in Taranaki yesterday...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/dailynews/ ... 54,00.html


...ball lightning?

NZstorm wrote:I agree with the assertion that most funnel clouds arn't significant.
And yes, microburst damage can be confused with tornadoes.

What did the Met Service label the Hamilton 15th event as? On my website I have the following.

There is a case for this wind damage being the result of a microburst (locally intense wind gust) rather than a tornado. The very unstable, squally environment on the night would have favoured locally high wind gusts as well as tornadoes. But the very narrow damage path is suggestive of a tornado. I estimate the wind strengths required to do such damage would be in excess of 80knots or 150k/m.

Bob was asking me about it, wasn't too sure himself, nor myself... but the guy with the most structural damage DID say it was a tornado.. saw it turning and tumbling down SH1

I can believe that ball lightning... amazing stuff!

about five flame-coloured lines snaking down her shared driveway.

I have seen a very similar thing myself, running parallel to the ground, only a few metres above the ground, when I was only 8 years old or so
no one believed me at the time, LOL!

Interesting re the recording of Tornado/Funnel cloud events, because what do you actually base it on?? Becuse Reports can be some what exaggerated. And the general opublic may thnk a downburst is it fact a tornado.

I would hardly record mine from the other day as anything, I didnt really think I was going to post anything about it, becuse it didnt last long.

Stormchaser said,

I would hardly record mine from the other day as anything, I didnt really think I was going to post anything about it, becuse it didnt last long.

How many Funnel clouds have you seen.

I plan to start a tornado register on my website effective from 1st January.
I will personally investigate some of the sightings to insure they are bonifide tornadoes.

Foggy, I am reasonably confident the September 16th event was infact a tornado.