Ground Hog Week or (Cold End To June)

[Area51]

Thunderstorm rolling onto Auckland Airport now with the latest cell, lightning observed and hail falling.

[Manukau heads obs]

a good close strike here with that last squall

[GreggWard]

Article on Stuff about a lightning strike leaving tree in bits, down here on Wednesday night:

http://stuff.co.nz/manawatustandard/4599231a6003.html

[David]

Went dark at about 8.40am this morning, with some thunder rumbling away, some large wind gusts hurtled through as well with a brief moderate-heavy shower, gusts probably up to about 75km/h. Some distant rolls of thunder from about 3pm this afternoon too, another brief squally moderate-heavy shower.

I though we were supposed to get some really heavy duty intense squalls
Its the 4th day in a row with thunder heard, but I just wish some could boom right overhead for a change.

[Manukau heads obs]

here on the west coast we have had close strikes with booms overhead and some really good squalls
by the time the showers get inland to you David they have lost some of there sting

[Manukau heads obs]

just had a really good squall with hail
I will get a video uploaded too

[Manukau heads obs]

video of the squall going through (turn up the volume to hear the hail on the windows/roof )
http://www.weather-display.com/download ... ideo-1.wmv

[Michael]

Squall here W winds Gusty.Unfortunately to watch it the condensation ruins the view.

[Area51]

Auckland Airport just reported a gust of 70kts in that last squall!

[spwill]

Good video Brian.
I'm going to a function tonight which is being held in a Marquee . Might be a damp drafty evening.

[Manukau heads obs]

>Auckland Airport just reported a gust of 70kts in that last squall!
crickey!
I am not surprised, it was the best looking CB of the day as it approached....had the potential to pop out a tornado I reckon
they must have got a microburst or similar!
there could be some damage if that wind moved inland from the airport!
we only got 44 knots here

[David]

>Auckland Airport just reported a gust of 70kts in that last squall!
crickey!
I am not surprised, it was the best looking CB of the day as it approached....had the potential to pop out a tornado I reckon
they must have got a microburst or similar!
there could be some damage if that wind moved inland from the airport!
we only got 44 knots here

I see 58knots, not 70. We just had a ripper squall go through, certainly gusting in excess of 80km/h. Roofing iron on the garage was banging and rattling a bit. Looks like worse may come yet!

[Area51]

I'm onsite at the airport, western runway end indicator maxed out at 70kts then the system had a momentary failure!

[Vertigo]

holy moly, brian! thats some squallin!

[Manukau heads obs]

>I'm onsite at the airport, western runway end indicator maxed out at 70kts then the system had a momentary failure!
cool !
whats your job at the airport?

[Manukau heads obs]

another good squall, 53 (99 kmh) knots this time!

[GraemeWi]

We have had some big squalls come through the Henderson area - traffic lights out due to a power cut, lots of recycling bins blown around, and some of the most insane wind and rain I've seen in a long while!

[Cameo2]

is that all folks for this system? seems like it

[Cameo2]

....sorry, no, didn't realise we had all those cold pools coming over:) EXCELLENT! lol

[David]

Going by the New Plymouth radar there are more squalls on the way
I was hoping for a 100km/h one here but they seem to weaken significantly as they move away from the sea.

Is there much of a chance of a thunderstorm tonight like metservice say?

[NZstorm]

Theres another front due tomorrow morning. While its a weak feature it could be enough to trigger another line of possibly active thunderstorms with hail. Have to wait and see.

I was in Manukau this afternoon and there was a huge thunderbolt about 3.15pm. I heard on the radio it cut power to some traffic lights.

[Manukau heads obs]

I am picking up the odd strike still in the CB's that are still to come in from the tasman
we have had a WSW wind change here now, and temperature dropped to 9.6oC only now...so the trough line has finally gone through

[Willoughby]

Yeah, combined shows 1918 strikes for the past 60 minutes, while correlated shows 661 strikes for the same period - assume that correlated eliminates the duplications in data from the various sites, as well as triangulating, therefore a "more accurate" picture?

StrikeStar also paints an accurate picture. Did well today, and pretty in line with what the MetStrike sensors recorded.

[Manukau heads obs]

Lucky me, being at the northern end of the current thunderstorm zone area

[Willoughby]

Some bright flashes here to the west now, even though skies are relatively clear.