Storms to herald in '07, Upper NI.

spwill · Unread post by **spwill** » Mon 01/01/2007 18:12

Observed thunder/lightning and heavy rain near Mercer just south of the Bombay hills on SH 1 this Afternoon. Two storms developed in the area as I arrived . They drifted NE into the Hill country (Hanua) so I gave up the chase.
Nice pics above so I wont post mine.

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Mon 01/01/2007 18:38

Nice photos

I went down to Bombay for a closer look at the Hunua storm. Saw some CG's but the storm was tracking away.

Razor · Unread post by **Razor** » Mon 01/01/2007 19:11

Heres a few pics courtesy of my cellphone...came out pretty well.

First two from Titirangi, last two from Ellerslie. Looked to be some really interesting downdraft type stuff going on from the motorway!

tgsnoopy · Unread post by **tgsnoopy** » Mon 01/01/2007 20:17

Had an excellent late afternoon chase through the Katikati to Tauranga area. Things really started going off from about 3pm with lots of CG action, quite impressive to watch whilst driving down the Kaimais.

One thing I did notice was Gary's Boltek may be ranging slightly close, Foggy's seemed to be blind or it is rotated about 20Â° out (to the left). Maybe the Kaimai ranges were causing it trouble?

The heavy rain/hail bands slowed SH2 down to a crawl and we had several inches of small hail on the ground when we cleared the downpour.

Sorry, I was driving, hopefully my passenger took some photos.

Hopefully more tomorrow

kaimaikid · Unread post by **kaimaikid** » Mon 01/01/2007 20:57

Yup, had my ranging adjustment a little too close but then it wasn't that far out either looking at the replay afterwards...

sorry no piccies of the hail but then I was busy rolling a smoke

Storm Struck · Unread post by **Storm Struck** » Tue 02/01/2007 00:02

What a start to 2007 then with some nice structured pics on the forum well done guys good to see.
Does anyone actually video tape the storms up north? or is it just us canty chasers

.
By the way looking ok for possible thunder over inland canty plains etc on thursday afternoon especially with the wind being NE a change in current to the several days of cold SW winds

should mix in well.
Possibly a simular scene to the 18th of december 06.
Cheers
Jason.

ricky · Unread post by **ricky** » Tue 02/01/2007 00:26

lots of great cloud and storm pics already so i thought I'd throw in the 4:15pm radar image.. shows up the line of storms nicely

kaimaikid · Unread post by **kaimaikid** » Tue 02/01/2007 06:28

Nexstorm virtualy shows the same - snapshot taken at 5pm @ 50km radius...

kaimaikid · Unread post by **kaimaikid** » Tue 02/01/2007 06:36

another snapshot also taken at 5pm @ 200km radius...

kaimaikid · Unread post by **kaimaikid** » Tue 02/01/2007 06:38

note the persistance in both is set to only 30 mins

GraemeWi · Unread post by **GraemeWi** » Tue 02/01/2007 08:13

Jasestrm wrote: Does anyone actually video tape the storms up north? or is it just us canty chasers

I've got a video camera and a firewire capture, but normal digital photography is much quicker and easier for me to use and easier to share online.

In say 5mb of bandwidth I can share maybe 25 or more good static images maybe 800 x 600 resolution vs a few seconds of highly compressed video footage the size of a postage stamp

Cheers,

G

tgsnoopy · Unread post by **tgsnoopy** » Tue 02/01/2007 08:36

I tried the video camera with Foggy early last year. Unfortunately the footage wasn't much use (autofocusing on the windscreen etc).

If I wasn't driving I guess some better results could be obtained, but I like driving through the hail with lightning above and around us too much. Nothing quite like watching others who can't see struggle to drive whilst my rain X keeps my visibility up without needing to use the wipers.

Maybe I should just fit the camera to a mount in the car set the focus to manual and infinity and leave it running? Who know's might even get a chance this afternoon? [Fingers Crossed]

spwill · Unread post by **spwill** » Tue 02/01/2007 09:00

Does anyone actually video tape the storms up north?

SLR does the job very well here but I think video would be well worth having for USA storm chasing .

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Tue 02/01/2007 09:03

I have used movie mode on my Canon G5 compact camera before. I have a couple of good movies of frequent lightning in the USA. I have thought about putting them on You Tube but never got round to it. I didn't think to use my G5 movie mode on the Tokoroa storm as I was using the 400D which doesn't have movie mode.

Apart from a low risk of a sea breeze convergence storm over the BOP/Coromandal today, looks like NZ is in for an extended period of settled weather as a big cold anticyclone moves in for an extended stay.

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Tue 02/01/2007 09:05

I think USA storms with the continuous lightning and strong rotation/tornadoes are best captured by video. The more sedate NZ storms are effectively documented with the SLR camera.

A wall cloud (mesocyclone) photo looks nothing as a still photo but in video they are quite impressive.

Thinking of getting a video camera. I notice the Sony HDR has dropped in price considerably in the past year. Sony perhaps make the best video for storm chasing as they perform well in low light situations.

kaimaikid · Unread post by **kaimaikid** » Tue 02/01/2007 10:25

Underneath a thunderhead - the left half of the cloud base in this shot was revolving nicely

Manukau heads obs · Tue 02/01/2007 11:35

i have a new sony handycam (digital VD) for the USA trip now

nice photo kaimai kid!
up close and personal!

for a video of yesterdays clouds (the best were off to the right of my webcam though):
http://www.weather-display.com/windy/gb ... yvideo.htm

GraemeWi · Unread post by **GraemeWi** » Tue 02/01/2007 12:41

There appears to be an anvil off to the west - offshore - I can't get a good view of it through the lower cloud clutter. Can see it on the noon radar, maybe 50-70km offshore, with possibly another off to the distant south-west... Brian can you see any from your place?

Cheers,

G

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Tue 02/01/2007 13:33

The 500mb temp on todays sounding was -23.5C, so still some latent instability up there. The dry coolish southwester though makes things stable off the surface. No sign of the big t/cu that we had yesterday.

Yes, some showers well out to sea.

Willoughby · Unread post by **Willoughby** » Tue 02/01/2007 14:09

One thing I did notice was Gary's Boltek may be ranging slightly close, Foggy's seemed to be blind or it is rotated about 20Â° out (to the left). Maybe the Kaimai ranges were causing it trouble?

It was most likely blind due to the storm trac targets Nexstorm plots, where it 'focuses' on putting the strikes there with a cell.
I probably had my ranging a little too far where Gary had his too close as you say.

Here's my comparasion for 5pm...

Manukau heads obs · Tue 02/01/2007 16:53

been out ...wake boarding behind a boat on the manukau

yes, there was some CB's way off shore this morning
i see another one popped up way to the NNE somewhere too..this aftenoon for a while

warmer and humid NE winds next week?

Willoughby · Unread post by **Willoughby** » Tue 02/01/2007 17:50

This Cb is starting to get electrically active to the southeast...

(click to enlarge)

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Tue 02/01/2007 19:02

Can see cb tops to far east. Thundery showers in the BOP/Coromandal by the looks.

spwill · Unread post by **spwill** » Tue 02/01/2007 19:10

Thunderstorm Mt Maunganui/ TePuke area moving out to sea.

kaimaikid · Unread post by **kaimaikid** » Tue 02/01/2007 19:15

Yup certainly was - Neil and myself went up the top of Baldy and watched it as it was dying - some nice strikes too....

Foggy - my nexstorm had almost plotted it spot on in those pics