Severe Easterly storm & Flooding, upper NI, 9 - 13th Jul

[spike_01]

Calm here... No rain, chilly and overcast...

Looks nasty up north...

[Skip]

The roof of this apartment building has literally peeled off in the wind with insulation blowing all down the street. Just off Ponsonby Road. 4 Fire Appliances there and the Firemen don't know what to do!

Yeah i went down with a camera crew from Shine TV (Sky Digital 111) and interviewed the guys who were in the top floor apartment when the ceiling collapsed on them, and the roofline folded back.

The fire department chief who was their said they couldnt do anything or leave because no one from Auckland City council could be contacted and they were struggling all over the city because no one could find the city engineers.

Suspect its gonna be a long night for them all. Video footage for this should be replayed on Shine Tv tomorrow night at 6.30.

Skip

[spwill]

when was the last time the North had a storm like this??

Cyclone Drena in 1997 ?.

[C-Nimbus]

Power is back on now in parts of henderson, we have been powerless since 4pm!!

Crazy crazy winds this evening and i really thought we were gunna get some damage here but i think we're ok. Dying down a lil bit now but still the odd robust puff.

Seems to be some nice rotation of the low centre over Northland at the mo.

Hope everyone is ok and safe

[tgsnoopy]

Location of incident: Police Northern Communication Centre

Incident Type: Media Release

Record calls to Police Emergency Centre during weather bomb
The heavy rain in Northland and strong winds in Auckland caused record numbers of calls to the Northern Communication Centre on Tuesday evening. More than 2500 calls were made in a ten hour period, with nearly 1000 being emergency calls.

Superintendent Allan Boreham, said 'This is the highest number of calls in a late shift period the centre has received, higher than on New Years Eve or Guy Fawkes.'

Normally on a Tuesday late shift we might expect 540 emergency calls and 750 other calls, so tonight was almost double that. Most of the calls were for flood or storm related events with road blockages, trees and power lines down, vehicles trapped in floods and people in danger.

Despite the high call load, all the emergency calls and nearly 90% of the other calls were answered promptly. The communicators and dispatchers did a remarkable job across this period, answering 89% of the emergency calls in 10 seconds or better.

'This is the best result we have achieved in a major storm and was a testament to the skill of our staff and the fact many volunteered to stay on until the worst was over', said Mr Boreham.

Issued By: Inspector Matt Sillars

So it was a weather bomb?

[GraemeWi]

We got hammered, power went out early last night and was still out when I left home. There were heaps of powerline arcs, impressive how much they lit up the sky. It's been the strongest easterly I can remember in our location. Not too bad in terms of flooding, too dark to see the local river, but the road was still open

G

[RODALCO]

tgsnoopy

So it was a weather bomb?

A weather bomb is a cocktail of bad weather.

like:

wind, thunder, hail, rain, snow, lightning, temperature differences, tornado's.

[TonyT]

So it was a weather bomb?

No. The rate of deepening of the depression was nowhere near the rate needed to be classified as a bomb low. However, I suspect that scientific detail will be lost on the media, who will no doubt inflate their language to describe it in whatever emotive terms they can.

[dija]

tgsnoopy

So it was a weather bomb?

A weather bomb is a cocktail of bad weather.

like:

wind, thunder, hail, rain, snow, lightning, temperature differences, tornado's.

i thought a weather bomb gets it name from a depression that deepens by at least 24hpa within 24 hours. ?

[spwill]

No. The rate of deepening of the depression was nowhere near the rate needed to be classified as a bomb low. However, I suspect that scientific detail will be lost on the media, who will no doubt inflate their language to describe it in whatever emotive terms they can.

Yes but the weather is the same anyway.

I see Met Service Warkworth radar is still down due to the power cut, you would think there would be power back up in place for the Radar by now.

[gopolks]

Ponsonby fire brigade assess damage to building.

Best wishes to all who have been badly effected by these storms.

I see 115000 are without power.

[Michael]

We used to get some big easterlies,actually more NE I remember like 1989 etc

[Lawrence]

bomb—An extratropical surface cyclone with a central pressure that falls on the average at least 1 mb h−1 for 24 hours.
This predominantly maritime, cold season event is usually found approximately 750 km downstream from a mobile 500-mb trough, within or poleward of the maximum westerlies, and within or ahead of the planetary-scale troughs.
Sanders, F., and J. R. Gyakum, 1980: Synoptic–dynamic climatology of the “bomb”. Mon. Wea. Rev., 108, 1589–1606.

bombs rapidly drop in pressure to below 980 millibars (28.94 inHg) under favorable conditions such as near a natural temperature gradient like the Gulf Stream, or at a preferred quadrant of an upper level jet streak, where upper level divergence is best. The stronger the upper level divergence over the cyclone, the deeper the cyclone can become. Hurricane-force extratropical cyclones are most likely to form in the northern Atlantic and northern Pacific oceans in the months of December and January.The lowest pressure measured from an extratropical cyclone in the United States was 951.7 millibars (28.10 inHg) on March 1, 1914 in Bridgehampton, New York. Between January 4 and January 5, 1989, an extratropical cyclone south of Atlantic Canada deepened to 928 millibars (27.40 inHg), equivalent to a category 4 hurricane.In the Arctic, the average pressure for cyclones is 988 millibars (29.18 inHg) during the winter, and 1,000 millibars (29.53 inHg) during the summer.

[Wildland]

This has been a staggering event in terms of area affected to a serious degree - Northland and the Coromandel Peninsula. It is fortunate that the large population centre involved (Auckland) suffered the least disruption and damage.

It's going to be a long night for some people still without power, and a nerve-wracking one for the residents of Dargaville as they wait to see how high the Wairoa River rises as it receives the flow from the inland catchments.

Some of the 24-hour rainfall figures for Northland are a shock.

[Gary Roberts]

See, this is why we southerners make a big deal about a bit of snow...we just don't experience the action weather you guys in the north get!

It snowed a tiny weeny bit in Twizel this morning...

[squid]

ahh yes the northern wairoa river often goes ever the banks in times like these

[Manukau heads obs]

Sobering watching the news

My uncle recorded 230mm in Whangerei in 12 hours

that station might have something nearby that drips rain into the rain gauge I wonder?
(other rain storms that rain gauge has over read too)
(or it could be tip bounce in gusty winds)
(a stocking over the top of the rain guage can help with that)
(la crosse 2310 station type)

[Wildland]

Late yesterday I was watching the data coming in from Hansen Products' weather station in Whangarei as it ratcheted the rainfall up past 350 mm and wondered whether it was real.

This morning when I checked the station it had gone past 500-odd mm of rain so it was obvious that the rain gauge was still measuring something - but not rain. It made me cast a nervous look at my own rain gauge and think about how serious things might be here in Tawa if my rain gauge was measuring jostling in winds of that strength. gulp.

It's food for thought. Mind you the rain gauge in Whangarei could have been poorly mounted, or the mounting may have been loose at the time. That has to be considered, I suppose.

I'm grumping about the cold here in Wellington tonight, but I'm blardy glad I'm not in the "winterless north" for a change. We've got everything crossed for family and friends in the winterless (stormy, powerless) north.

[Michael]

That Whangarei site also shows heat index of 25.4° in July as well and 37° in summer as the outdoor temp.
I rather have the cold than the SW showers stuff

Late yesterday I was watching the data coming in from Hansen Products' weather station in Whangarei as it ratcheted the rainfall up past 350 mm and wondered whether it was real.

This morning when I checked the station it had gone past 500-odd mm of rain so it was obvious that the rain gauge was still measuring something - but not rain. It made me cast a nervous look at my own rain gauge and think about how serious things might be here in Tawa if my rain gauge was measuring jostling in winds of that strength. gulp.

It's food for thought. Mind you the rain gauge in Whangarei could have been poorly mounted, or the mounting may have been loose at the time. That has to be considered, I suppose.

I'm grumping about the cold here in Wellington tonight, but I'm blardy glad I'm not in the "winterless north" for a change. We've got everything crossed for family and friends in the winterless (stormy, powerless) north.

[Storm Struck]

Sounds like another big one indeed and have been following this through the news too as we all have.
According to a report on one news wind gusts reached 90kts ( 200kmh) in one area I think it was the Coromandel. Is that possible or is it just someone going overboard? .
Someone called up on the radio this morning to say there roof had been ripped off and torn to the next door neighbours. They had a weather station on top of the roof which recorded a gust of up to 146kmh at the time the roof went.
Cheers
Jason.

[Lawrence]

It pains me to say this but as the government has just granted exploration licences to two international oil consortia led by industry giants Exxon Mobil and OMV and the South is in for a billion dollar boost from oil and gas exploration, we can expect more global warming storms similar to the event we have just witnessed because we refuse to look at alternatives. And of course it’s just about the money. How ironic that we suffer at the hands of nature while we profit from the cause. How do we all reconcile that with the residents of the communities like Kaeo and the people of Kaitaia and Coromandel?

[RWood]

Glad to be missing hometown weather at present - not dramatic, but cloudy, cold and damp - yuk!

Will be a double shock if that keeps up...

[Andrew Massie]

See, this is why we southerners make a big deal about a bit of snow...we just don't experience the action weather you guys in the north get!

It snowed a tiny weeny bit in Twizel this morning...

I saw your small font Gary!

And I agree.. feeling sorry for you lot up north, will swap ANYTIME! Seriously! The only natural action we're gonna see is the Alpine fault rupturing or a Tsunami from Chilean quakes... And bad weather sounds much more fun.

[gllitz]

See, this is why we southerners make a big deal about a bit of snow...we just don't experience the action weather you guys in the north get!

It snowed a tiny weeny bit in Twizel this morning...

I saw your small font Gary!

And I agree.. feeling sorry for you lot up north, will swap ANYTIME! Seriously! The only natural action we're gonna see is the Alpine fault rupturing or a Tsunami from Chilean quakes... And bad weather sounds much more fun.

Uhhhhh....yeah....I'll take bad weather ANY day over those alternatives!

[Manukau heads obs]

yes Jason winds were that strong
Tiritiri Island, in the Hauraki gulf, recorded gusts to 100 knots (185kmh (the media are not converting correctly)

i see that my remote station on a high hill here on the coast, which is exposed to the east, the power must have gone off (i do have a UPS, but it will only last for 30 minutes), but has come back on...gusted to 65kts at just after 6pm....but before the peak at 6:30pm,,,,so it might have recorded higher (very exposed to the east)

where was that house that had the weather station on the roof that got blown off, and was the data on the net anyway I wonder?


interesting news item here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4124720a10.html

Northpower reports it was worse than Bola