Unstable weekend ahead, 17-18th Jan!!!

[Lacertae]

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[Lacertae]

Here if you could tell me what the hell was that sort of wall cloud over the towns west of the city ?!

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[mikestormchaser]

Well a brilliant day all up today guys, great chasing and catching up with you Andrew was awesome stuff!
First real decent chase for a long time going as far south as Ashburton. That funnel was just amazing, nearly a tornado in the end, and my very first live funnel ever to boot.
Tried to get few photos but with all the rain around was rather hard to do so, but got some good shots and with jasestrm filming while i was driving he's got some very good video footage!
Came across a road down near ashvagus totally white with hail so pulled over and got some pictures while there was some dangerous close lightning about.
Then heading back towards chch could see this massive thunderstorm going off as we were driving back.
Unfortunately kinda missed the chch storm but came home to fine flooding all the way down Lincoln road id say about 30cm deep!!! never seen anything like it.
all in all one of the best thunder days so far, what a start to 2009

[Lacertae]

And again, same question : what the hell was going on there, south of Tai Tapu ?!

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[Skywatcher]

I saw quite a few bolts hit the Port Hills so probably the ones you captured, Ben. I was out near Motukarara and there was a well-defined edge to the heavy rain so I think that's the "wall cloud" in your photos.

The camera can actually shoot 60 photos per second not just video but the quality isn't brilliant and the uploads are cropped and reduced in size. It makes it a lot easier to photograph daylight lightning though

I found another 300fps video which shows a strobed return stroke. It's worth running a few times and checking the cloud higher up the frame.

http://www.skywatcher.net.nz/images/CIMG2848t.mov

This one is less than 1/3rd second in real time - it's about 842kB, the other one was 1.15MB.

[Lacertae]

Really good videos Steven !!!

Just to make sure there is no confusion, the "wall cloud" I am talking about is the wee stuff on the right-hand side of the 3 pictures.

And do you know what's going on with the Rakaia radar ? Damaged by the storm or something ?

[TokWW]

Lacertae - I saw something similar on the 14th up here and took photos of it. Have to start uploading some - getting overdue Mine had a curl to it and appeared to have some updraft adding to some rotation - it created a horizontal, curved, cave structure....

Excellent photos BTW! That's what it's all about, sharing interests, resources, time and chasing together and creating friendships! Well done guys!

[Manukau heads obs]

looks like it was a great day in canty alright!
lucky buggers

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Can't see the video , Steven , in Quick time

JohnGaul
NZThS

[mikestormchaser]

Lightning towards the SE thunderstorm either heading in with S change or its the final one out to sea hmm......

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I think that after the recent storms, another meeting of the Canterbury Weather Watchers is just about due.
What do you guys reckon?
We could meet at the Isobar Tavern in Hornby, a appropriate place for weather nuts to meet??

JohnGaul
NZThS

[mikestormchaser]

I think that after the recent storms, another meeting of the Canterbury Weather Watchers is just about due.
What do you guys reckon?
We could meet at the Isobar Tavern in Hornby, a appropriate place for weather nuts to meet??

JohnGaul
NZThS

id be in John

[TokWW]

A couple of outtakes from Stevens video for John...

[Manukau heads obs]

video worked for me OK
but I had to download and install apple quick time

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Lightning towards the SE thunderstorm either heading in with S change or its the final one out to sea hmm......

Yes, Mike i can see the occasional flash from here. Looks good

JohnGaul
NZThS

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

video worked for me OK
but I had to download and install apple quick time

Thanks Brian

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Storm Struck]

Wow what a chase day, got some great photos here are a select few it was very hard to get photos of lightning due to so much rain.
I have yet to look at the video footage tomorrow which should be excellent as well.
Got a few photos of the funnel cloud, must admit it could well have touched the ground when we first seen it but still a few fiddly shots while the heavy rain and hail came pounding down holding the door open with my foot under a strong SE wind.
One road we went down was funnily enough called Wilkinsons road ( after Aarons last name ) when me and Mike-Tornadoman lost Aaron and the others due to low visibility in heavy rain.
Anyway we headed back up the road and less than 1km strip of the road was just whiteout hail then nothing, just shows how isolated the shafts were.
We sat there for a good 20 minutes with some close bolts coming down and rattling thunder.
Heading back through near Rolleston the road was whiteout again with deep hail drifts, and the surface flooding was incrediable back in Christchurch with Lincoln road a river torrent.
Some great photos from everyone else too, i like the CG shots from the Port Hills FAB .
Cheers
Jason.

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[Storm Struck]

And even more storms at thier best.
Cheers
Jason.

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[Storm Struck]

Some more of the flooding on Lincoln Road.
Cheers
Jason.

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[Lacertae]

Nice to see you had a good time further south ! When you texted me about the funnel cloud I started to wonder what on earth I was doing at Gibraltar Rock ... thanksfully it became more interesting later on !

[Thunder]

Good stuff Jase! Sigh a new camera would be nice one of these days, but still I've got me old Nikon 5700, lol. That funnel seemed to be hard to photograph well, looked better when we initially viewed it. Not sure about it possibly touching the ground though, but you never know when our backs were turned! LOL. Anyway, a few other pics mainly of hail from me. The largest we saw would've been about 2cm like in the palm of my (Andrew with pic of same stone) hand, perhaps there may have been the odd rouge stone up to 2.5cm as there seemed to be some other big hail bouncing around out there. It was funny because about 5 min before the intense hail came down all the sheep in the paddocks started moving off to find shelter, they knew something was coming and it was!

The hail storm lastest quite a while. To get out of the car to go and measure would've hurt like heck though so we stayed in the car.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Where was the funnel cloud filmed or photoed?

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Chris Raine]

In answer to NZTS I missed the Thornbury storm as was in Oamaru but partner rang me and said there was a spectecular storm about 2-3 miles to N- NW of Thornbury tracking SE .Rumbled away for about 45 minutes though . We only had 2.3 mm when she read the raingauge this morning although Invercargill had 19.0 mm

[Ryan Thomas]

Wow, I missed out on this whole event because I was at work and inside, the lights in some chillers went out for about 3 seconds, and I could constantly hear thunder.

Parents said Selwyn street had a flood and there was lightning overhead and a house they own got flooded.

Would I have have the chance to see something like this again?

[Skywatcher]

Can't see the video , Steven , in Quick time

Sorry, John, it probably needs the latest version of quicktime - 7 ? The camera uses quicktime so it was easier just to trim the clip than try to convert it.

The strobing clip lasts less than a second of real time not 1/3rd second - I was dividing by 30 instead of 10