Major Low Pressure system - 8th to 12th May

[Weather Watcher]

Jeez, you're in New Zealand, you make it sound like Canada...

Myself, have you spent a bit of time living in Canada?

[southernthrash]

LOL no not Gary.

What the thing is that when you grow up with the snow you know what a pain it is. Only the townies who come and play in it for a few days think its wonderful. They dont have to live with it and drive through it and track it through the house. To the townies it is oh so lovelyand magical but to us people who are born and bred with the stuff it is just a bloody nusance.

Ha ha - you can always tell who the townie snow tourists are. They are the people who drive around with snow on there cars and camper vans because they think it makes them look like mountain men!! The rest of us clean it off our cars first before we drive them!

If you've lived in cities where winter snow is a regular event, the novelty wears off very quickly. Tekapo is in a beautiful region, and I'd like to be able to spend a lot more time there, but I could skip the snowiest days.

It's all very subjective really though isn't it? I mean, plenty of people move to certain places (Pacific NW of the USA, or Japan for example) for the very reason of the huge snowfalls that occur in those regions. Just as people will move anywhere for a desired climate...

[Dale]

Aye.

For the last 2 decades I have lived in & chased the big South East Qld and NNSW storms.. topography & initiation of them are a lot different. Gone are the days of forecasting them off the land, now its the coldies off the Tasman so this is a whole new kettle of fish to me.. (im sure some of them were flying around in them spouts today!)

I chose to relocate back home, here.. but I also choose to go back to Queensland in summer & chase the 50 000ft monsters.
You can still keep the snow.

[Philip Duncan]

Can anyone remember a hail storm as big as this one was? I have never seen photos around NZ of cars looking practically submerged

[NZstorm]

What was the depth of the hail today Philip? The only report I have seen is 10cm. The deepest hail I have seen reported in recent history was 30cm on the upper suburb of Wanganui, 6th April 2004. The Insurance council say damage bill was $1.44mil for that one.

[Willoughby]

Holy crapola! What a magnificent waterspout and hailstorm!

Looks like Sydney a couple or so years ago! Hamilton turned like this in 2006 June, but not as much as this.

Wow!

[Tornado Tim]

I usually watch 3 news but I just checked out 1 news article about the severe weather in Papamoa and what do you know my Uncle is on the screen!

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Beautifully fine here today. Metservice are forecasting fine weather tomorrow and wednesday. However, maps and GFS contridicted this earlier with showers and snow to around 300-400m looking the case but now that has backed off, wed looks like showers still but tomrrow not the case. How are u seeing that Jason? I notice you were thinkin the same thing earlier. Anyways down to 0.6 degrees already. Maybe a severe frost on the way

9pm New Plymouth radar looks nasty with decent red showing on it. Maybe something more dramatic yet...?

[Manukau heads obs]

that Mt Manganui/ papamoa area seems to be a hot spot for CB's in a NW flow
must be something to do with the Coromandel range creating wind shear/convergence, along with coast surface winds (i.e E at low level (checking stations in the area), NNW upper, running parallel with the coromandel range, and of course the warm sea temperatures (the east side of the upper NI tends to cool down slower in the autumn for sea temperatures (more sheltered from the cold winds?)

it must have been a back building CB, over a "'hot spot" just off shore, which meant the hail lasted so long (reports of 40 minutes) and enabled the 10cm of depth to accumulate

just my thoughts

[Philip Duncan]

10cms is huge really....ice pellets stacked up that high. Truly awesome!

[NZstorm]

There was case in Devon England last October where the hail got upto a metre deep!

I agree Brian, a backbuilding cb over the warm seas just offshore. Some directional windshear there would have assisted the waterspout formation. There almost certainly would have been a low end supercell structure with that storm and that enhanced the waterspout formation.

[Manukau heads obs]

yes, I think its more a " tornado over water" (i.e not a normal waterspout (which can form from much weaker clouds (and different processess) than that one was! )) (i.e I photographed one off the coast here where the cloud was not even big enough to produce rain!)

[jamie]

and it was huge too.. im no expert but arent water spouts normally small-ish. If someone with editing skills choped out the sea and put land under that it could be mistaken as good sized midwest tornado

[RWood]

Jeez, you're in New Zealand, you make it sound like Canada...

Myself, have you spent a bit of time living in Canada?

Can't speak for him, but I was in Chicago for the winter of 1967/68. It was a very light snow season by their standards, but a few falls constituted enough amusement for us. The previous season they had the "great snow of 1967", when the city was paralysed by a massive dump resulting from a front slowly moving "longitudinally" through the area. On the downwind side of Lake Michigan, cities in Michigan would collect lake moisture effects and the snowfall averages were much higher than for Chicago.

I wouldn't think of Tekapo as being very snowy, but I prefer to see the icing sugar on the surrounding ranges and a clear day overhead.

[Philip Duncan]

There was case in Devon England last October where the hail got upto a metre deep!

I agree Brian, a backbuilding cb over the warm seas just offshore. Some directional windshear there would have assisted the waterspout formation. There almost certainly would have been a low end supercell structure with that storm and that enhanced the waterspout formation.

Now THAT is amazing! At first we all thought the waterspout was a fake - then we got another photo in...and then another. Was obvious very quickly that it was real.

Imagine if that had been a kilometre closer to land...MAJOR destruction. I'm very surprised about the low amount of damage really.

[Nev]

TVNZ also have a couple of nice pics of the Papamoa waterspout(s) here and here
- from their Bay of Plenty Hail Storm gallery.

Story - 'Storm lashes Bay of Plenty'

[Dale]

Is there any way we could get a radar loop from about 7am onwards? I should really have saved the images to disk (hourly available to the public scans.. DERRRR..........) but if im correct, that line in particular that wreaked havoc on the BoP was the same one that passed to the South of Pukekohe between 7 & 8 this morning.. reflectivitys at the time were suggesting such a movement in that general direction (BoP) before it unloaded. Would love to go into a post analysis detail but limited access the radars, skew-t's (sure i could make my own but thats not the point for the area it happened) and above all, the trigger.. would be interesting for my own documentation.

That was one heck of a hail dump.
As it passed over land south of me this morning.. saying it was the right active band of storms itself.. there were many strong hailshafts eminating from them. Very thick cumiliform updrafts, strong.. tall, rock solid straight up with no backshear & more mammatus than a male strip club on hens night. Perfectly honest, those early morning busters were the best display of mature Cb's since ive been back home.

PD.. havent seen a dump like that wince Willo (foggy.. yeah im all around mate hehe) mentioned re: Sydney.. witnessed something similar whilst in Brisbane a couple of times.. but to have a B52 load of the crap dumped on you as shown in the photos.. no.

[Dale]

that Mt Manganui/ papamoa area seems to be a hot spot for CB's in a NW flow

Around the 7am'ish mark and onwards there was a strong NE breeze funneling through the bombays.. didnt really back off until just after lunch.

[Storm Struck]

Well it depends if the warm front off the low swings in close enough, ive just read the forecast on CRT which has obviously just been upated still saying occasional showers tomorrow and snow to 500m.

I was wondering about that hailstorm and whether any records have been broken ( and not from the hail no ), surly this is an indication of the global change .
Cheers
Jason.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Wow, this is interesting. Radar shows some light showers just to south of ChCh in which it is 0 degrees here right now and there is a tiny spot or two out there now.....yet its still 0 degrees.....mostly clear skies but some coastal cloud popping up.

[tich]

Scattered cloud over BP today after early morning showers cleared, and clear skies with light winds in Chch when I got back this evening - quite strange knowing there's a big low pressure system over us rather than an anticyclone which you'd normally associate with such weather.

[jamie]

if im correct, that line in particular that wreaked havoc on the BoP was the same one that passed to the South of Pukekohe between 7 & 8 this morning.. reflectivitys at the time were suggesting such a movement in that general direction (BoP) before it unloaded.

That was one heck of a hail dump.
As it passed over land south of me this morning.. saying it was the right active band of storms itself.. there were many strong hailshafts eminating from them. Very thick cumiliform updrafts, strong.. tall, rock solid straight up with no backshear & more mammatus than a male strip club on hens night. Perfectly honest, those early morning busters were the best display of mature Cb's since ive been back home.

im glad you saw it too. i had the pleasure of watcing it all the way from hamilton to auckland (which was a 2.5 hour drive thismorning (never doing that again)). I took photos on my cell phone but they were crap. It had massive solid up drafts and a big over shooting top at one stage. As you said a heck load of mammatus. Had an awesome rounded shape too. I wouldnt be suprised if once it died it moved across the land and was triggered back into life once it crossesd the kaimais and did the deed over there.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

The hail storm in the BOP has nothing to do wih global change, it's just the way the lows in this complex trough formed, drawing cold air up into the warmer air around the Tauranga region.
Nice to see people snowboarding at Papamoa Beach. Just like seeing people playing Beach
Yolleyball in Mason Bay in west Stewart Island
JohnGaul
NZThS

[Tornado Tim]

The Hail shaft on the Papamoa Hailstorm must have been over 6ks since it went from the Mount to Papamoa which around 6-10ks.
My Uncle and Aunty has to completely re sow there veggie garden and the trees look like they have been stripped according to my Aunty and Uncle.
I think The hailstorm needs to be split from this thread and a new 1 made for it alone,for easy reference... Thanks
Started raining here again...

[tgsnoopy]

I was sadly in Opotiki when the storm hit Papamoa.

But, I did have fun trying to get up the hill from Ohope to the Kohi Point lookout above Whakatane to watch it come in. Fine Hail in large quantity is extremely slippery!

Spectacular! Continuous thunder from obscured CC above and occasional CG. Oh what I would have done for my video camera & tripod.

Watched it for hours.

Sadly batteries and memory sticks only last so long.

Managed my second ever still shot of lightning, this time a good CG.

After running out of memory and the storm front passing overhead I was leaving driving past the radio mast (highest point) I had diligently been focused on when it was struck with me maybe 3m away. Nearly needed new underwear. Stopped me in my tracks for a few minutes whilst I had muscle spasms in my back from the huge shot of adrenaline the fright gave me.

Then had to deal with the thick hail on the road. The road was closed at Whakatane and Ohope ends. A truck jack-knifed a car rolled and numerous vehicles stuck on the slippery stuff, unable to get up the steep climb out of Ohope.

Will post photo's and videos when I find time to edit.

Spectacular to watch out at sea once it got dark. Even deleted some music of another card I remembered I had in my GPS until the batteries went flat again.

I wish I'd left home an hour or two later and caught the storm there. As it was. I was held up about 45 minutes by a serious crash at Waitangi that closed the state highway.

Bayfair was closed tonight. Most of the problems would have been after hail blocked the drains on the roof and water couldn't drain. It's notorious for that. The complex has been extended a number of times. It's possible for manhole covers to lift inside the complex and let water into the complex inside if it really pours.