Deadly Auckland Tornado - May 3

[bmo]

St. John saying one person died, number was revised down at 5pm

[spwill]

I visited the Bush Road area of Albany, saw quite a few homes with some damage. This area is about 1km from the Mega Centre where most of the damage looks to have occurred.

[mikestormchaser]

WICKED! the extreme power at its best!
you aucklanders must be having a ball up there atm with all this going on! i first heard it on the rock radio station and had to think how big it must of been i reakon a f2 aswel.
great pictures and videos guys! anyone els got any photos of the thunderstorm cell? can this be confirmd as a supercell storm?

[spwill]

any photos of the thunderstorm cell?

Not a good day for cloud photos today due to a lot of low cloud but I took this photo of the departing shower line.

[NZstorm]

The clip just shown on TV1 Closeup looked amazing, the tornado crossing the main road.

can this be confirmd as a supercell storm?

The tornado would be related to a supercell tornado as it was from a low level mesocyclone.
If this tornado made it to Pt Chev as reported thats a distance of 15km from Albany.

[Tornado Tim]

Phil is going to being interviewed on Campbell Live in a few min on the tornado.
Update: Hmmm, he was referencing a Diurnal Heating type situation for the tornado, I am not sure if thats technically correct.
I am pretty sure this was a meso-cyclonic tornado not a fair weather funnel that turned into a tornado but would need to have a look at the doppler to confirm.

[Manukau heads obs]

he clip just shown on TV1 Closeup looked amazing, the tornado crossing the main road.

sure was!
looked like it was straight out of tornadovideos.net by Reed Timmer!!

[Manukau heads obs]

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/video-e ... 39-4153067

[mikestormchaser]

Yes i just saw that small interview on cambpel live.
Yeah i think it would be a mesoclconic type situation more then heating aswel.
If someone can post up a doppler image of the storm you would get a good idea of its organisation, and if any hooks are there.

[Tornado Tim]

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/video-e ... 39-4153067

alright!

[Manukau heads obs]

the detailed rain radar I saw when it was happening showed a hook echo
(see my post about that, at the time, in the original thread)

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

"Auckland Transport said commuters should expect delays on the Western line as trains are running on 40km/h speech restrictions between Newmarket and Avondale."--NZHerald

Even trains are speaking slower, i mean travelling slower!

I saw that.
I could just imagine the commuters restraining their language or speaking as the trains were travelling at 40k/hr


JohnGaul
NZThS

[jamie]

that is definitely a meso cyclonic tornado.

[Tornado Tim]

Was/Is the Auckland Uni Radar in operation? If it is then it might be a good idea to contact them.

[David]

Wow! Never expected tornado weather today, didn't even hear any thunder. That's a pretty long track for an NZ tornado isn't it? Must have been some decent rotation in the CB that spat that out. Amazing seeing the footage and damage. What would it's rating be, EF1?

[mikestormchaser]

Wow! Never expected tornado weather today, didn't even hear any thunder. That's a pretty long track for an NZ tornado isn't it? Must have been some decent rotation in the CB that spat that out. Amazing seeing the footage and damage. What would it's rating be, EF1?

An ef2 according to what phil said on campbel live

[Michael]

Bob Mcdavitt and Geoff Aaustin I think it was on 1 with Walrus(sainsbury)

[Razor]

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/video-e ... 39-4153067

alright!

Staggering!

[Dale]

Crikey.. now THAT footage is just off the wall. Still cant get over that semi...

[Manukau heads obs]

still cant believe it, LOL, next morning
and still cant believe someone was killed, soooo unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time!

[NZstorm]

Yesterdays weather set up was a classic tornado set up bar the weaker wind fields. Whats happened is the NE wind has been strengthened by the local geography and thus the shear has been enhanced on the boundary(front).

There was a deadly tornado in the same spot in 1991.

[melja]

And M/S did a piss poor job on this one! and then go into nowcasting or beencasting.

[Manukau heads obs]

19c DP's would have also been a big factor, thats high for this time of year
you could see how low the cloud base was

[spwill]

Yes the 19C dewpoints in May were the unusual ingredient for yesterdays Tornado also as NZstorm mentions the shear would have been enhanced on the boundary(front) due to Albanys location on the edge of the North Auckland hill country.

[Nev]

MetService also seem to think that local topography appears to have been the final ingredient which lead yesterday's event...

'Forecasters had no warning of chaos' - NZ Herald