Strong, Cold Southwest Flow over NZ - 18th-20th July

[C-Nimbus]

Yup, we just had a huge clap of thunder right overhead....loud as

[spwill]

Heard it here quite loud as well.

[NZstorm]

An elevated thunderstorm storm caused by lift + subtropical moisture in the mid levels of the atmosphere.

[spwill]

Pretty sure I just saw the sky lit by a flash of lightning and heard some thunder, though the detector didn't show up anything.

Showing here,isolated.

[David]

Never heard a thing here, but have had 9mm rain this evening.

[Myself]

However, to 500m in Canterbury, i cannot understand that! Here they were saying to 200m when clearly it was not going to get below 600m Wednesday and now they go for 500m when any precipitation that does fall will see snow to 200m at the highest I would have thought with thickness of 520. Yes, we do not have the precipitation, yes it is hardly anything exciting to look forward to and no snow will accumulate but any precipitation that makes it to the coast will fall to lower than 500m I would have thought. If im wrong ill eat my hat!
Over and Out!

I'm not convinced it will get as low as you think Mark. Maybe you should stop being a slave to the thickness?
The freezing levels look too high. And when the change comes through. How many showers are there likely to be for Canterbury? I think very few, and not likely to last long. A light shower cannot plow through 1000 metres of above-zero air.

[RODALCO]

Heard that loud bang too. Big flash and instant bang while at the West Wave swimming pools in Henderson.
about 1950 hrs.

[Michael]

Wonder what is exciting about the weather this morning,Horrible Wet,8/8 constant Windy Cold and Condensation,pineneedles,noisy outright boring.

[jamie]

Nice and warm in Tonga compared to here. Flew in this morning at 5am and it was a rather bumpy ride for the last hour. A few people on the flight feeling a bit ill. The wind is quite strong here thismorning. Really gusty at times

[David]

29mm rain here since late afternoon yesterday - was not expecting that much at all!
SW is gusting about 65km/h this morning so not a pleasant day...

[gllitz]

It's a pretty impressive satellite loop of the system, but looks to be losing oomph as it moves north, especially on water vapour loops...I see Macquarie Island is on -4C, so some pretty cold air with it, for sure....won't be anything for us here in Canty, as it is too much of a SW'erly flow, much like a system we had earlier in the season. Southland, Dunedin, etc, may get a bit more action out of this, I'd say.

[Nev]

Good dump here overnight also - ended up with 42mm since yesterday arvo. Not that cold this morn though - only got down to about 9.5°C.

Blustery gales out this way - Tiritiri recording mean-winds of 89 km/h at 9am and 61 km/h in the Waitamata.

Baro got down to 988 hPa at 5am (down 24 hPa since 8am yesterday).

[spwill]

29mm rain here since late afternoon yesterday - was not expecting that much at all!
SW is gusting about 65km/h this morning

Much more stormier weather for Auckland City with this system than last weeks system with all the warnings and hype. Some quite big gusts here this morning for MtEden.

looks better for this afternoon, currently 12C, a couple of showers around.

[gllitz]

I thought it might have been just a coastal thing (only about 3 km from coast here) but the fog has yet to lift...noticed it is pretty thick near Jeff's as well...CHCH wide?

[David]

Max gusts here were 70-75km/h around 9am - has eased since then.
Was interesting to see Channel Island in the Hauraki Gulf averaging 117km/h at 8am!

[Nev]

Was interesting to see Channel Island in the Hauraki Gulf averaging 117km/h at 8am!

Yes, but those winds were being funnelled out of the Gulf (through the Colville Channel), rather than into it.

Edit: Also, unlike last weekend's low, this ones centre did actually pass right over us earlier this morn.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Yeah glen the fog is still thick here in halswell and hoon hay area, even with a breeze that developed over an hour ago. Very interesting!

[Razor]

Yup pea soup here in St Albans although starting to thin out now

[tich]

Starting to thin out in central Chch too, enough for some sunshine. Hopefully a pre-frontal westerly will soon arrive and push it all away.

[tidd66]

Front is just about to hit us, have a bit of light rain. Woke up to a frost this morning but temp shot up to about 9deg hopefully will start going down again soon.

[Myself]

MS expecting fog to clear by about 2PM, if it hasn't already. Then a fine afternoon with light west or northwest winds, followed by the gusty southwest change at about 10PM, bringing a few showers.

TAF NZCH 172320Z 1800/1824 VRB02KT 0200 FG BKN001
BECMG 1800/1802 29006KT 9999 NSW FEW010
BECMG 1810/1812 23018G28KT
TEMPO 1810/1820 7000 SHRA =

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Beautiful warm day here now! Fog cleared around noon and not a single cloud in the sky (like you would expect after fog). Within 20mins went from thick fog to purely blue blue and blue. Good to watch!

[Fujita Phil]

In the mountains today. Staying in Queenstown for a bit of R&R. Will try and keep you posted on the weather here. Sunny and windy at the moment and quite mild (probably still under 10ºC but that's warmer than it's been). Might be a bad night to be away from Dunners, though it Queenstown, I'm not complaining

[spwill]

Still have a fairly strong SouthWester here but plenty of sunshine now 14C, dry but radar shows the chance of a shower this afternoon.

[Nev]

Some friends have lost power here - heard what sounded like a transformer explode (tree v lines?).

Some outages up North as well...

'100 households without power'
Updated at 11:00am on 18 July 2009

More than 100 households in Northland are without power - for the second weekend in a row - after a night of strong winds and rain. Northpower says houses in the Whangarei Heads area seem to have taken the brunt of the gales. All its line crews are all out on Saturday to repair the damage. Unlike last weekend, the company says it was not expecting the storm. Northpower says customers should all be reconnected by the end of the day.

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