Early morning rain/thunderstorm in Christchurch area

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tich
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Early morning rain/thunderstorm in Christchurch area

Unread post by tich »

I woke up this morning (about 7AM) and looked out the window, noticing it was cloudy (high cloud) but dry. Then I turned on the radio and tuned to Newstalk ZB for the news and local weather forecast. I was surprised when the announcer reported that there was an electrical storm in Rangiora with spectular thunder and lightning, though it was easing. I had neither heard nor seen any sign of this. Then it started raining solidly in Chch, but I noticed no thunder or lightning. The rain is easing off as I write and skies are beginnning to clear.

Ben
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Michael
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Unread post by Michael »

It may be a quick SW'ly flick as the low is currently quite close to Banks Peninslular and now probably moving SE with a change to westerly conditions
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Unread post by tich »

Fine now with only a few scattered clouds - feels like it could be a warm day here in Chch.
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Unread post by jeffsweather »

I was surprised to hear 3 or 4 static crashes on the radio at 6am while listening to Nation Radio news. The signal is strong so the lightning had to be close. It was quite dark out to the NW about 6:40am.
A few large spots of rain about 7am in Hillmorton and then more continuous rain about half way to work. It wasn't too heavy as I only got damp while cycling. 5.2mm in my rain gauge.
As Ben mentioned, a sunny day now.
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Unread post by Thunder »

I noticed heavy rain/small hail here this morning but no lightning or thunder. I went on the roof before and notice there are big clouds offshore but they are going to disapear and with it any lightning or thunder which I didn't see anyway!

John, get anything?

Cheers
Aaron Wilkinson
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Unread post by Thunder »

Image

SOMETHING THIS BIG WENT BY AND I DIDN"T NOTICE ANYTHING!
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Unread post by Skywatcher »

It was just heavy rain with bursts of small hail out here, too.

I got another power supply from DSE this week so the lightning counter was running today :) There was a total of 49 pulses recorded between 5am and 7am so that could have been the storm at Rangiora.

Cheers
Steven
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tich
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Unread post by tich »

feels like it could be a warm day here in Chch.
It felt like that this morning, but a fresh northeasterly sprung up this afternoon to cool things down. Still fine and sunny though.[/quote]
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Unread post by NZstorm »

Interesting.

I looked at the weather this morning and noticed thunderstorm activity on a front moving off the Tasman Sea onto the lower North Island. Did not spot the convection over Canterbury. The Invercargill sounding at midnight indicated an unstable lapse rate though.

The post frontal freezing level at Invercargill today was 1300m, Auckland 3300m. No wonder it felt cold in the south.

The conflicting airmasses are likely to generate more thunderstorms in the next few days, mainly about the west of the SI.
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Unread post by TonyT »

Thunder and lightning around dawn in Waipara today, rain in Amberley but no thunder that I heard. Winds switched SW/20 after tha rain, then NE/20 by 11am, then NW/25 by 1pm! Talk about all seasons in a day, we had all the winds in about 6 hours!
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Unread post by GreggWard »

Early morning distant thunder, in the Manawatu. Never saw any lightning.

Steve, was just wondering how you could tell there were thunderstorms heading towards the lower North Island, this morning.



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Unread post by NZ Thunderstorm Soc »

I'm not to sure how to answer this.
It was cloudy this morning but I was unaware of any thunderstorm development.
I went off to bed last night and it was clear and quite mild. I recorded 15C at 11pm last night, up from the 12C coolness of the mod to fresh NE or ENE that was blowing yesterday. The thermometer dipped to 4C overnight and was up to 13.8C by 7:30am just before it came onto rain. I recorded 5mm with the rainfall until the clearance just after 9am. The barometer had dropped right down to 985hpa before this so it was obvious a bit of a convergence developed with the southerly airflow and the impeding westerly aloft. I did notice a WEE bit of glaciation throught the back of the cloud as it drifted away to the east at 9am as well.
This was a scenario similar to last Friday when a hail shower fell here at 5:40am.


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Unread post by Thunder »

Thats exactly what I thought John. I just thought "small hail, must be like the other day..." But somewhere there was thunder... oh well.

Cheers
Aaron Wilkinson
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