Unstable air to start the year?/Canterbury Thunderstorm

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TokWW
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by TokWW »

Nice pictures - interesting wide angle shot... showed mammatus in the lower layer - agressive percolating stuff! In the storm, you don't know whether to duck for cover or get a chance great shot!

Tok
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Andrew Massie »

TonyT wrote:Sporadic flashes visible to the northwest, look closer than the main divide, I would expect on the more eastern foothills.
Hi All!

Guess who's been in Arthur's Pass on holiday since the 28th?!!!

OH MY GOD, the 'flashes' were ALL night! Constant thunder and very heavy rain, CGs everywhere! The Devil's Punchbowl waterfall went from it's usual lovely flowing self to a massive raging torrent, as did the Bealey River! Pics and video to follow.. But GUTTED! Came back into Chch about 5pm.. MISSED the lot! However, coming in round your way, John, picked up a 15mm hailstone!

I'm still quite happy, having witnessed the Arthur's Pass event!
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by tgsnoopy »

Hmm, here I am in Sydney where once again the action is dissapointing. Typical, it goes off over there.

Glad you guys are getting some action, wish I was there!

May it be just the start for 2009 :)
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by mikestormchaser »

Jasestrm wrote:Just recording todays storm onto video and re evaluating it, i counted 83 thunder rumbles and 31 lighting bolts and flashes which pretty much sums up how good it was out this way.

Cheers
Jason.

im just wondering whether 31 lightning strikes is right? :lol: seemed abit low considering, i would of thought we had a lot more in chch, although i didnt count, but it certainly seems that just 31 is bit low anyways.
Never the less a beauty of a storm one of the best we have had in a long long time
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Willoughby »

Absolutely GREAT pictures all!!

Tim that sunset shot is amazing - satellite showed a very sharp line of jetstream cloud extending from Brian's on the Manukau Heads to Cape Kidnappers at 9pm which lets that setting sun in perfectly on the high cloud. :cute:

Image

I just logged into my flickr and found 2 of my contacts taking pics of that sunset too...
(click to enlarge)

Rototuna, Hamilton by apdz
Image

Napier by Raikyn
Image

=D>
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Lacertae »

A couple more pictures from the end of the evening, on my way back from a friend's place. Once more for the day, a shame I wasn't at the right place the right time 'cause it looked pretty nice ! Hope some of you guys were able to get better shots of those mammatus or sunset clouds ...

And sorry for the quality of the picture of the mammatus but I had to "force" on all parameters to make them more visible and the "noise" starts to show up with it ...
03-01-09-03.jpg
03-01-09-04.jpg
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by spwill »

The departing Front gave us the best sunset I've ever seen over Auckland last night.

Well done on the reports/photo's from the South yesterday.
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Tornado Tim »

Looks like the unstable air has finished... Fine Weather nearly all round.
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Skywatcher »

Finally sorted through all the photos I took.
Watched the storm from Dawsons Rd, Templeton. Only a brief burst of larger hail (up to 10mm) at about 15:10 then rain mixed with smaller stuff. Saw quite a few CGs with one towards West Melton strobing for a couple of seconds and the closest was about 200m away. As usual I missed all the better ones with the camera #-o
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Lacertae »

Steven Graham wrote:As usual I missed all the better ones with the camera
At least I'm not the only one ! ;-)
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by jamie »

nice pictures everyone....well done. I especially like the sunsets. Looks like i missed out on one of the best sunsets for Hamilton and Auckland for a long time :(
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by TonyT »

I drove through the storm in Kaiapoi around 4.30pm. Skies were incredibly black, and even green tinged as Jason reported. Hail wasnt that big, but there were a lot of stones coming down in a very short space of time - most cars pulled over, I kept driving at about 20kmh and the noise on the windscreen was unbelievable. Not just hail and rain pelting down, but leaves and twigs getting smashed off trees and blowing onto the car as well. Temp on the car thermometer fell from 20deg in the sunshine at Woodend to 8 deg in the thick of the hail 5 mins later. Visibility was appalling and the road very slippery (as the car which overtook me found out!). I had the AM on, and strikes were about every 2-3 seconds. Coming into Kaiapoi I could see plenty of CC strikes running 90-nearly 180deg of the horizon like a necklace along the leading edge of the cloud. Also some meaty looking CG strikes seemed to go down over Kaiapoi.

The rain gauge at Woodford Glen showed 15mm for the storm, and most of that would have fallen in under 10 minutes. Here at Amberley we had 8mm, hail and lightning here too.
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Nev »

At 10:09 pm David wrote:A few lightning flashes just observed to my NE in the last 10minutes with a distant rumble of thunder heard. Look at the radar loop - this CB developed almost instantly over the Hauraki Gulf because there was no rain here.
Yes, nice little lightning show here last night at about 10pm. Must have been almost right on top of us going by this radar image, although perhaps just of the N coast as we got only minimal rain with it here at the time.

Virtually blue dome skies out here this morn with moderate to fresh SSW'ers. 13.8°C at 6:30 and currently about 20°C.

EDIT: Originally had the 4pm image instead of the 10pm
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Storm Struck »

I caught a few of those CG's on camera, but alot of them came down just before the storm was overhead.
The 31 strikes i was referring to were the ones my camera picked up viewing W-SW and NW not overhead and towards any other direction.
Which means the lightning count would have been higher if i had filmed it in an open area.
Could have chased but i had not long come back from driving 5 hours from Karamea on the northern west coast.
Cheers
Jason.
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Paul Mallinson »

Hi Guys,

Great reading your reports. They are really useful. It was certainly a busy day at work yesterday. The radar imagery on this storm was really quite amazing. We followed it with up to 20mm hail indicated by the radar for 3.5 hours before it died at the coast in north Canterbury by about 6:30pm.

A couple of great lightning shots there Steven. One can really see the contorted path of the lightning through the air. And Tony, a very interesting report, especially the observation of a temperature of 8 degrees within the hail area. I will go back and look at the (forecast) sounding and see what surface temperature it suggests from the cold downdraft. (Will let you know.)

Cheers,

Paul
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by jamie »

Hi Paul,

This radar you get to look at working with metservice, is there any chance we could get a few snap shots of what you were seeing on the radar yesturday? Im sure alot of people here would love to see a high resolution radar image of it.

Cheers
Jamie
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Kim »

I went for a drive during the storm yesterday, out down South Eyre Rd towards Oxford. Temp according to my car thermometer dropped from 20 down to 4 during the hail!! So intense I had to pull of the road and wait for 5 minutes. It was fantastic to watch.
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by 03Stormchaser »

Seems like I missed the storm to kick start the year, managed to get a few pics of it as it passed cheviot on the way back from the sounds. Will get them up tomorow as there on the gf's camera.
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by NZ Thunderstorm Soc »

One beneficial fact about yesterday's storm, it was good way too clean out rubbish from the verandah guttering and downpipe :D
Sadly there were remains of a nest and some eggs :(
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by TokWW »

A few sunset shots from the passing cold front - no storm up here in the Waikato, no mid day heating, only advection and about 18.9ºC max DP. Temp dropped 6deg rapidly as the front passed through. We had just 5.3mm of rain here, 7.2mm at another station in town...
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Andrew Massie »

As promised; here's a video I made, just for all us forum people! Sorry about quality, I produced it as a 10 Meg file, optimum was 87Megs!

Hope you like...!


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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Ryan Thomas »

At those flashes at the end, couldn't hear the thunder, Must of been a while away? And amazing difference in 2 hours at Devils Punchbowl (don't even think I've seen it before)..
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Lacertae »

Thanks for the video ! I went through Arthur's Pass village around 3pm on that day, back from the West Coast, and I am glad it wasn't later as the showers were already quite annoying while driving at that time ... :-S
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?

Unread post by Andrew Massie »

The storms were coming through in waves, starting around Otira, and passing over us towards Klondyke Corner. I couldn't stay up and watch all night, too tired, particularly after using up all that adrenalin earlier in the day! Left the curtains open all night, though! I drove a bit in the rain, with the wipers on top speed I still couldn't see much and had to drive slow!
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Re: Unstable air to start the year?/Canterbury Thunderstorm

Unread post by Andrew Massie »

I've posted a higher quality version of my video on youtube if anyone's interested..

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