Polar trough 7-9th April

[Fujita Phil]

Quite frequent rain/hail showers here in Dunedin. Cold

[Nev]

Interesting to note is the airport current weather site shows that there was a "shallow sandstorm" overnight as below.

Obviously an error. The 1am Metar is 'missing', but a 12:40am Speci makes no mention of a 'sandstorm', i.e. just a light WSW'er accompanied by rain.

METAR NZCH 071200Z 23004KT 9999 -RA FEW002 10/10 Q0996 TEMPO 6000 RA BKN012 RMK SUGARLOAF 25013KT

SPECI NZCH 071240Z 25004KT 210V300 8000 RA FEW005 SCT044 OVC060 10/10 Q0996 BECMG 9999 NSW TEMPO 4000 +RA BKN012 RMK SUGARLOAF 25020KT

METAR NZCH 071300Z MISSING SPECI COR

METAR NZCH 071400Z 20001KT 8000 RA FEW005 BKN046 OVC060 10/09 Q0994 TEMPO 6000 BKN012 RMK SUGARLOAF 03008KT

[planez]

More weather headed up the Coast from South Canterbury. Looking good for activity 3 pm onwards as showers laced with hail and snow down to 400 m arrive. Southern skifeilds looking good after the overnight dump.

http://www.snow.co.nz/snowreports/snowr ... skiArea=17

[Storm Struck]

Lots of scatterd CU developing and stronger towering tops to the south and west now, 13C with a W-SW wind currently.
Might be a good hailstorm sweep through the CBD perhaps .
Cheers
Jason.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Sun has been shining pretty frequently over the past couple of hours with big fluffy erupting looking clouds towards the port hills. Looks like some nice development occuring in Nth Otago - Sth Canterbury. Metservice says snow lowering to 400m tonight and some heavy showers until tomorrow around midday. I agree jason we may see some sleet in the city with isolated heavy pockets of rain forcing flurries to somewhat lower levels. The perception is that this 2nd southerly front is going to be colder than the last one. The one this morning brought snow to around 250m with methven and darfield seeing the white stuff! I would say we are in for a pretty interesting sort of evening here tonight! Fingers crossed. Interesting to note 2 days ago in 2004 we had snow on the port hills and sleet to the city. So who knows!

[gllitz]

Something particularly dark and nasty looking *trying* to develop around the Tai Tapu area, from my point of view here in the city...lots of shower activity off to the west and northwest toward the foothills, as well...going hand-in-hand with the 1 pm radar...

EDIT: It's nice being 10 stories up!!

[Vertigo]

just had a monster shower pass over greenlane. flooding in the countdown carpark 11am sounding shows decent cape, but only to about 700mb, so no thunder today. still definitely a chance of localized heavy showers tho.

[Storm Struck]

Brief shower belt came through just before delivering only a very brief few light spots of rain, the cloud did look like it was going to hail with some nice shafts coming down from it.
Now clear again towards the SW, i sure hope this isnt an offshore scenario as the 2pm radar looks like its doing.
Cheers
Jason.

[Razor]

It appears something is brewing, to the west, north and east of ChCh but I think you are right, its not looking like a ChCh 'action event' so far.
Possible though

[Lacertae]

Just back from a drive.

08-04-09-01.jpg

08-04-09-02.jpg

08-04-09-04.jpg

08-04-09-05.jpg

I'm not gonna chase again today, so good luck !

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Very little change from 2pm - 3pm. Im a bit worried it is going to wrap around BP and we will miss the brunt of it. Hopefully the low deepens soon and some new development occurs more in our direction. Wind is up now though and temp has dropped back down to around 11 degrees.

[Razor]

F-I-Z-Z-E-R?

[Storm Struck]

This is really quite strange not sure what to make of it, scatterd CU is coming in from the south then being sucked into some upper level layer and precipitating more inland.
Where as to the south there is blue sky, its really blackening up towards the west though now.
Temperature has dropped here now 10C with overcast conditions and a few big drops of rain about 10 minutes ago.
Cheers
Jason.

[Tornado Tim]

GFS Is suggesting that the CAPE will spread predominately over the BOP now.
And still have enough for the Waikato, Hopefully tomorrow some DTSH (Daytime surface Heating) Will occur and bump up the DP's.
But the GFS gets updated tonight so will have to see later on if it gets changed.

[gllitz]

This is really quite strange not sure what to make of it, scatterd CU is coming in from the south then being sucked into some upper level layer and precipitating more inland.
Where as to the south there is blue sky, its really blackening up towards the west though now.
Temperature has dropped here now 10C with overcast conditions and a few big drops of rain about 10 minutes ago.
Cheers
Jason.

Been watching it happen like that all day here, Jase...clouds look to be impressive and they build up and up, and then quickly dissipate once they get to the city/past the Port Hills ...oh well...maybe next time...

[jamie]

just had a monster shower pass over greenlane. flooding in the countdown carpark 11am sounding shows decent cape, but only to about 700mb, so no thunder today. still definitely a chance of localized heavy showers tho.

I can confirm that.... i was driving through it. Was rather heavy rain.

[Razor]

Tekapo is white!

http://www.tekapotourism.com/webcam.htm

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

I think we may only get very isolated showers as the brunt of this is out to sea and working its way around BP. However, it is looking very black to the south at the moment and the tv has flickered a couple of times so maybe some action around the vicinity. Fingers crossed.

[Janos]

current temperature 4.2deg..

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

An absolute fizzer and the max wind speed in the last half hour has been 1km/h. Dead still! Rain in Nth Canterbury only.

[gllitz]

Just had about 5 mins of steady rain with some ice pellets mixed in...all gone now...nothing special...

[Storm Struck]

Yes that is possibly the best shower we have had all day asides the rain this morning, grounds around damp after a steady shower not sure whether there was any ice in it though because i was inside.
I dont think i have seen a southerly act like the way it did today, most of the activity was inland from mid to north canterbury where the shower development started instead of moving in from the south.
By tomorrow morning i am thinking well from early hours we might be getting more of a tunnel affect of showers coming through the Banks Peninnsula belt, as one area of the coastline gets pummeled by showers.
Cheers
Jason.

[mikestormchaser]

OOH so ya did go to the beach Lacertae
those clouds around 1:30-2 pm sure did look good this afternoon, a real thundery look about them, lots of height and bubble.
Had brief hail shower here earlier, but really hasn't been to much action so far.

cheers

[jamie]

nice shower/band heading towards auckland. Pukekohe should be getting a good blast right about now.

BTW im in Hamilton for the next 2 weeks. So thats where im reporting form.

[Lacertae]

OOH so ya did go to the beach Lacertae

Thanks to you !
I don't know why I didn't try the beach at first as I usually do (what's the point of living close to New Brighton otherwise ?!) but even if I was a bit late I've captured that interesting structure on the 3rd picture. It was even more interesting when I was driving through Linwood, looking really gloomy, dramatic and picturesque !