went to bed, bumped my head, and got up and it was raining!

[Manukau heads obs]

wow, last night was a beautiful clear evening, no wind......but the manukau bar was roaring like a lion (bad sign)
this mroning its raining heavy....5am....talk about a big change!

[NZstorm]

Brian, I got woken by the rain too. Sun breaking through now.

I think the showers mark the onset of a slight change of air mass, higher dewpoint air. That additional moisture at lower levels has created some low level instability, hense showers. Suprisngly heavy considering the cloud tops are not very high, about 3000m i think. Upper atmosphere is quite stable. I think the showers should tend to clear as the day warms up to a warmish 20C (if we get enough sun).

Tomorrow looks to be the day for interesting weather with thunder possible.

[Michael]

There was a front on the map over the BOP forecasted it must have gone unfortunately furthur west

[NZstorm]

hey...look at that dewpoint rise, now 15C. Air has turned a bit more unstable now with cuform tops to 4500m.

I notice Aerodrome forecaste for Auckland Int airport is for chance of thunderstorm today!!!

Quite heavy shower here just now.

[Manukau heads obs]

we just had a heavy shower go through.....

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

...and all we have to contend with down here in the Mainland is for a boring southerly to go through around midnight then clear up tomorrow and becoming fine and boring despite more NW/Sw next week!
Might as well give Waikato the Ranfurly Shield as well !!!!

JohnGaul
NZTS

[NZstorm]

Showers look to have cleared AK....with a line of heavy showers now in the BOP. Fair here now, 20.1C

Looks very good for thunderstorm development tomorrow, over Waikato/Auckland.

[NZstorm]

Continuous static on the am band this evening and I can see lightning flashes out to the west (distant). Satellite imagery shows some good cb blowups on the front with obviously active thunderstorms.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Yes unfortunately for us, heading your way.
Enjoy them

JohnGaul
NZTS

[NZstorm]

Alot of lightning out there.....some of it within about 30km of here now.
Quite a mild evening too, feels more like a summers night. It is the very moist air that has triggered the cb's along the front.

[NZstorm]

and can hear thunder now.

[NZstorm]

hail storm here now.

[Thunder]

Did you manage to try your camera at getting some lightning shots? A night time Ts, so lucky!

Cheers
Aaron Wilkinson

[Manukau heads obs]

been out....back now
12:46am
78 lightning counts here,....
some close enough to knock out the power briefly, and i think one phone in the house is out
rain radar shows lots more to move onto the auckladn area from the NW in the wee small hours of the night....looks to be lots of hail in it....

loud thunder as I type this....
will try to get some sleep...
yeah, right...

[NZstorm]

Hi Aaron,
So far all the lightning/thunder has been adjacent(out to north,west,southwest). CG's visable but too far away. No lightning over central Auckland yet. Heres hoping. Heavy rain at the moment with distant rumbles.

[Thunder]

Hi guys

Here is the 11:08pm sat pic (20th) from Steven G's website and 12:00am (21st) radar pics for Chch and Auckland, we've got some rain and I've heard it on the roof but nothing like what you guys look to have! No static on my radio. Off to Bed!



Cheers
Aaron Wilkinson

[NZstorm]

CG straight over the top of me now.

[NZstorm]

Just for thr record Whenuapai Midnight sounding indicates cb tops to 9500m.

Heavy rain with good electrical storm here now.

I won't get any sleep untill this is through.

[Thunder]

Well havn't gone to bed yet. Waiting until I see 3am radar, at least it's Sunday tomorrow, ahh, big sleep in! I'm sure you agree Steven W. I'm sensing CG photo's later on Steven W, am I right? It would be cool if you got some!

Cheers
Aaron Wilkinson

[GraemeWi]

What a night! I didn't get to bed until after 2am. I shot nearly 100 pictures from the deck until I was forced inside by rain. At one stage I had to brace the tripod on the deck as the wind was gusting badly just before the rain hit.

Spotted the distant lightning around 9pm off to the west - gradually it became a full 180 degrees covering from the southern horizon right around to the north.

I have a heap of 'blinding white' pictures so I'll spend some time gamma correcting them so the lightning paths will show. In the meantime, here are the best of the night that need no touching up.

All clickble thumbnails

Storm approaches










Gamma corrected:







http://www.graemewi.orcon.net.nz/pictur ... ept20.html
http://www.graemewi.orcon.net.nz/pictur ... gamma.html

Cheers,

G

[GreggWard]

Grame,

Great shots of the storms up your way, can't wait to see some of the others you took.

We had distant lightning from around 9:00pm here last night, which was relatively frequent. However, the storm seemed to die out by the time it arrived over Palmy, around midnight. By then I only saw 1-2 flashes every 15min.


Gregg

[GreggWard]

Sorry, I meant Graeme.


Gregg

[GraemeWi]

Found a nice shot - if only the scud had been a bit more 'solid'...

Scud being drawn up unto the base of the cloud:



G

[ScottyD]

I was coming home to Albany from mission bay, just after the warriors finished last night. I saw a few flashes on the horizon, but couldn't see much, due to street lights, cars. Was going over the harbour bridge and looked westish. Right there i saw a CG. It's only the second time i've seen fork lightning in person so naturally i was quite excited. As i was getting closer to albany i thought i was driving away from it all and getting quite upset.

At midnight, i had to make my way out to Kumeu. i'm house sitting there at present. Now it seemed i was driving straight into it. cg strike after cg strike. Wow. I'm surprised that the windows of the house didn't break, that's how loud the thunder was. I've never heard anything like it.

Just a few days ago i posted a message saying that i had been quite dissapointed with the auckland weather and how it hadn't delivered any good light shows. Well my prayers were answered last night. Lets hope for more of the same soon.

Scott

[Manukau heads obs]

we missed the second burst, having got the first lot at midnight....which was bad enough....
1 phone out of action

neat photos guys!
http://www.destin.co.nz/weather/lightninglog.txt
this url logs the strikes (last recorced), recorded at st heliers