Taranaki Tornadoes- State of Emergency declared

Razor · Unread post by **Razor** » Thu 05/07/2007 23:24

According to news reports at least half a dozen more tornadoes have occured tonight. Stuff.co.nz is reporting many many houses (40-50 odd homes) are 80% damaged, whatever that means, in Okura by three separate twisters.

One in particular sounded like a real monster funnel- to quote Stuff:
"In Oakura residents watched horrified as several tornadoes - one of them a giant - cut a destructive path through the small coastal Taranaki settlement at dusk tonight. "I've never seen anything like it - a huge black triangle came in off the sea and went straight through Oakura from one end to the other," said Nigel Carter, who was driving into the township west of New Plymouth when they hit.

Another resident, Todd Burkett, says he and others were enjoying an after-work beer at the Butler's Reef Hotel when three tornadoes simultaneously hit the settlement.

"The day got darker and darker, then it began to pour down, and then there was a massive flash over near the waterfront," he said.

"We all looked up and saw three tornadoes - two smaller ones and one really big bastard. They all moved right across Oakura."

Surely this past few days is unprecedented in NZ weather memories.

And surely it now deserves a separate thread!

Talk about blown away

Smeagol · Unread post by **Smeagol** » Thu 05/07/2007 23:26

I was just reading that on Stuff! Thats some insane stuff...

Razor · Unread post by **Razor** » Fri 06/07/2007 00:01

Again from Stuff....
I'm learning a lot of seriously scary stuff here!

"That big tornado, on August 15, 2004, hit 16km northeast of New Plymouth and demolished all the main power lines feeding the area north and inland from Waitara, cutting off nearly 7000 consumers. It was particularly severe, with debris spread over an area 400m long by 50m wide.

Rated at a similar intensity, New Zealand's worst tornado was in Frankton and a nearby part of Hamilton on August 25, 1948, leaving three people dead and 80 injured.

On March 10, 2005, a waterspout formed over the sea just west of Greymouth and made landfall in Blaketown, then carved through the town centre.

Like the Frankton tornado, it was rated at F2 on the "fujita scale" indicating windspeeds of 150-200kph.

The Greymouth tornado caused almost $10 million in damage and seriously injured three people, but despite the magnitude of the tornado no-one was killed."

Full article here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4117516a7693.html

Gary Roberts · Unread post by **Gary Roberts** » Fri 06/07/2007 07:13

Holy crap! I guess it's dispelled a few myths some of us still held about big tornadoes never occurring anywhere but Kansas!

TokWW · Unread post by **TokWW** » Fri 06/07/2007 08:50

A bit of humour in the middle of chaos... at Oakura 12kms north of NP

Man wakes up with the fridge on top of him...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4118459a11.html

Lucky!! Sad about the laptop... was computing at the time... eggs were alright

Andrew Massie · Unread post by **Andrew Massie** » Fri 06/07/2007 09:00

And more humor.... I heard Weathermad from our forum say "mini-twisters" on the radio this morning... feel free to abuse him!

03Stormchaser · Unread post by **03Stormchaser** » Fri 06/07/2007 09:10

Andrew Massie wrote:And more humor.... I heard Weathermad from our forum say "mini-twisters" on the radio this morning... feel free to abuse him!

Guilty as charged!!

Ban him foggy!!

TonyT · Unread post by **TonyT** » Fri 06/07/2007 11:13

TokWW wrote:http://www.stuff.co.nz/4118459a11.html

Quote of the year from Norm in that story - he's just been shaken around in his caravan by a tornado, and he says "That one really put the wind up me."

03Stormchaser · Unread post by **03Stormchaser** » Fri 06/07/2007 11:19

http://stuff.co.nz/blogs/tommy/2007/07/ ... een-duped/

lol reminds me of what I did a few years back!!

Manukau heads obs · Fri 06/07/2007 11:35

I tell you what , I did have my suspicions on that first image....because later cell phone photos/movies showed it as a waterspout at first, i.e alot of spray, but this was is more just a condensation funnel
next, the sky did not look all that threatening for the direction the photo was taken....

but I did not say anything, because when i ever I do query the authenticity of a photo people jump on me!

Gary Roberts · Unread post by **Gary Roberts** » Fri 06/07/2007 11:37

03Stormchaser wrote:http://stuff.co.nz/blogs/tommy/2007/07/ ... een-duped/

lol reminds me of what I did a few years back!!

It was so obvious. Only a stormchaser could be clueless enough to have fallen for such a kiddie-level fake.

03Stormchaser · Unread post by **03Stormchaser** » Fri 06/07/2007 11:48

http://newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=120379

TonyT · Unread post by **TonyT** » Fri 06/07/2007 11:52

Who is Philip Duncan? Is he on the forum?

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Mon 09/07/2007 10:59

Spent the weekend on the slopes of MT Ruapehu. Ecellent conditions for skiing, good snow.

Had a look at the Oakura tornado damage on Friday morning. I walked the damage track which looked to be a good example of an EF1 damage.

spwill · Unread post by **spwill** » Mon 09/07/2007 11:43

I did have my suspicions on that first image

I thought the funnel looked out of aerial perspective with the rest of the photo but it was a poor image.

I was talking to a Air Nelson pilot at the weekend he reckons he see's about a dozen waterspouts a year from his Aircraft along the NI WestCoast.

Gary Roberts · Unread post by **Gary Roberts** » Mon 09/07/2007 12:38

spwill wrote:I was talking to a Air Nelson pilot at the weekend he reckons he see's about a dozen waterspouts a year from his Aircraft along the NI WestCoast.

I and others have seen many off the Kaikoura coast too. Are some locations more likely to breed them or is it just that those are sites where people can see them?

spwill · Unread post by **spwill** » Mon 09/07/2007 13:22

More likely in the West and North as these area's get more unstable weather.

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Mon 09/07/2007 21:12

Some snaps of tornado damage here at Oakura.

Lots of downed power lines, roofs peeled back on houses and damaged vegetation. A big clean up was well under way.

Manukau heads obs · Mon 09/07/2007 22:50

what do you estimate the windspeed at nzstorm?
also how wide was the path?

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Tue 10/07/2007 07:58

Using the EF scale I calculate a 3 second wind gust of between 70 and 104 knots. The Oakura tornado would have been in the upper end of that range. That's a wind gust up to 190km/h! Damage path was up to about 50m wide.

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Tue 10/07/2007 08:06

This was the first house to be hit, down by the beach. Maybe this property is a higher category of damage.

RODALCO · Unread post by **RODALCO** » Tue 10/07/2007 08:26

I find it surprising that there are not more images from the actual tornado's themselves.

Especially considering that more people have digital cameras and cellphones which can take photo's although of poorer quality.

Razor Greymouth seem to get hit every couple of years, from memory, by quite powerfull waterspouts.

NZstorm I'm of next week to Ruapehu, Whakapapa and look forward to some good snow.

RODALCO · Unread post by **RODALCO** » Tue 10/07/2007 08:42

03stormchaser well done research there.

Just reading and opening up some of the links.

I had some doubts of that funnel image too.
That was the same image which was shown on the TV news last week.

I would take pride in taking a good photo clip of a tornado and would be more than happy to have my name listed in the news.
If photo's get submitted anonymously it makes it a little suspect IMHO.

I have my camera with me today, see what happens.

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Tue 10/07/2007 09:07

I find it surprising that there are not more images from the actual tornado's themselves.

That could be explained by the time of day, just on dusk when things were getting dark. There were claims of a sightings though.

NZstorm · Unread post by **NZstorm** » Wed 11/07/2007 09:35

Whakapapa ski field at weekend.

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Taranaki Tornadoes- State of Emergency declared

Taranaki Tornadoes- State of Emergency declared

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