NZ Weather Forum

NZstorm wrote:We are lucky we don't get higher instability values with these spring systems as the shear would be supportive of very mean Tstorms.

That's a matter of opinion... I would prefer more frequent & more severe thunderstorms. I also suspect I'm not the only one in this forum.

Sounds like damage from the Cambridge tornado could cost more than the $8.3 million caused by all the tornadoes in the Taranaki town of Oakura, New Plymouth, Auckland and Tauranga on July 4th and 5th last year.

'Tornado could cost insurers $10m'
Sunday, 19 October 2008]
...When asked if $10 million could be an accurate estimate, (Insurance Council chief executive) Mr Ryan said "it's very hard to know but that's probably not a bad figure"...

Also good report from Stuff's 'Waikato Times' here plus slide-show.

Hi - I've been a regular reader of these forums but first time I have posted. I think I can claim to be the viewer of these forums who was closest to this event. I live <200m from the Oakdale Resthome featured in the news and even closer to a house that was extensively damaged, but my place was untouched, not even a twig or a leaf out of place. I certainly head the tornado pass, was woken by a burst of very heavy rain just before it, then the tornando was just 10-20 seconds of a sound like a jet engine and one almighy crash which would have been an 80 year old oak tree 200m away at the end of the street hitting the ground. Did not realise how bad it was until I made my way to work, with police and fireman and roofing iron all over the place it was quite dramatic.
More extensive reports in the local Cambridge edition today. Official report form Chief Fire officer was 100 homes affected, 23 extensively damaged and 10-12 still uninhabitable.

Hi
thanks for the info, very interesting
Certainly one for the record boks by the sounds of it!

Thanks cbm. I wonder how long the damage trail was for this tornado. It would be interesting to do a survey on either side of town for evidence of a longer track.
Inland tornadoes generally favour afternoon occurrence for obvious reasons, so its interesting this one occurred at 3am. The system that produced it was going through a development phase, it was highly convective (though no thunder) and the wind shear with it was strong.

I walked a good part of the damage trail on the Saturday morning, about 30 hours after the event, also went for a bit of a drive later that day. It was quite easy to follow. Here is a map of where I found damage. The main grid pattern to the streets in Cambridge is spaced about 200m, to give you a sense of scale. It certainly carried on for at least 2-3km after leaving town to the Southeast, there were multiple trees uprooted and an aluminum garage lifted off it's base on one of the horse farms out there.

Thanks for the chart cbm. Very interesting. Its a pity the tornado missed the online weather station which is somewhere on the southern outskirts of town according to Brian. It didn't register any wind at all from the tornado.

great report that, well done
looks like it passed just 1 block west of the leamington motel where we stayed just 10 days earlier!,LOL

Wow! ... that's an excellent graphic cbm and thanks for the great report.

Any estimates on how wide its track was?
And was damage on one side of its path any more noticeable than the other?

Excellent piece of work there cbm. A very interesting map and thanks for your efforts. It is very seldom we ever see documentation like this for an event like this.

Paul