South Island Storms 10th - 15th January

[mikestormchaser]

and Tornado tim, im not so sure.. it looks like a hook echo to me with this latest radar image, shes sure growen into a big storm over the sea! and still going!

[Thunder]

Well it did fire in the end after all that, it just didn't look like happening. So much wafty cloud cover although the sun managed to get out at times but yeah it just didn't feel good all day, and then it happens this late in the day??!! Well let that be a lesson to me, haha. It did come into the area prog'd with good instability I spose but yeah.... oh well. So I didn't get to see this storm but saw distant flashes. I wonder if Steven Graham got out and chased it though as he would've been onto it I'm sure, well hopefully.

Yes mike odd storms for us, north to south indeed. Upper level winds would've been pushing them along at a rate I'm sure.

Bed time now, tired as.

[Chris Raine]

I am starting to see lightning from your Rakaia storm to the north east of Oamaru in the last five minutes

[03Stormchaser]

I think are all seeing hooks, I saw a different one to that one you posted mike but I think yours may be one, will look into it tomorrow

[Chris Raine]

We are having a thunderstorm in Oamaru from the cell moving down the coast from the Rakaia area this evening

[mikestormchaser]

We are having a thunderstorm in Oamaru from the cell moving down the coast from the Rakaia area this evening

hmm very unusual

[Chris Raine]

There are two cells active either side of Oamaru . The one to the west most predominate moving south at a great rate of knots

[Dean.]

Thunder and heavy rain here at 3am....moving through quickly on the radar

[melja]

Thunder too in rangiora around 4am.

[Lacertae]

Hmmm don't start imagining hook echoes everywhere guys, we had no way of seeing the structure of the storm and it might just be one moment when it looked like a hook. If it was a meso it would carry the hook along for more than 7.5 minutes anyway right ? Plus a meso in the mid/late evening off the Canterbury coast when we had no idea any such thing would happen ? I'd love to believe it but ...

[NZstorm]

Yesterday evening storm would have been elevated, so it occurred above the cap. You won't get a hook echo on an elevated storm. The storm developed over the ranges and upper level divergence would have kept it going.

[03Stormchaser]

I very much doubt the hooks were anything at all, just very interesting to see. Out of interest NZstorm how can you tell they were elevated?

[Tornado Tim]

You need to look at the elevation scans of the radar to determine if the storm was actually elevated or not. Something we do not have access to. (unless you can see it of course)

The nearest sounding I can find is in Invercargill, thats a little too far away to determine the upper air conditions for Chch.

Also of note: The radar colour scheme has a big part to play in the false hook identification, if you look at the Images the false hooks are just similar colours just next to each other, surrounded by a slightly lower Dbz value (the yellow).

Its only because of a bad colour scheme that people are picking up on this, largely contrasting colours such as yellow and blue are more likely to pick up on these types of things when they are just a matter of coincidence instead.
For example if the blue was different shade of yellow I bet you wouldn't pick it up at all if the false hook was inside the storm.

[03Stormchaser]

Metserviced confirmed it was elevated, hail to be 5-10mm, 55dbz.

[trickytiger]

had heavy rain, thunder and lightning for about 15 - 30 mins in Culverden around 3.45am

[Dale]

Tell ya what, thought it was a nader roaring through Greymouth just before 4am. Man was that violent! Just some tree damage as far as I know.

[Tornado Tim]

Welcome back Dale, we have been missing your posts!

[Dale]

Aww hey there, and thanks. Got myself a new phone & the forum works fine on it, so no excuses now haha.
Had another roaring great storm around 3pm too.. pretty lively little system this one. The rain has been much appreciated, it is so dry in places here on the WC.

[Michael]

Can you read the forum on your phone,Suppose the i phone would,never really seen one so guess they work like laptops these days.Anyway you still in greymouth,you had better weather than us here.

[Storm Struck]

I reackon when the storm was just west of Rolleston on land that it could have had a tornado touch down, very intense hail on the radars then.
Would be nice if we could put all the 15 minute radar runs from 8:30pm-10pm so we can see how fast it moved and developed etc.
Some welcome heavy rain overnight here only brief no thunder though, 7mm in the gauge.
Maybe the best next set up could be sunday with another southerly front coming up the island, tomorrow although theres a risk there will be weak storms south of christchurch but that depends on cloud cover too as the low moves east.

[Richard]

Too late for me to think about seperate threads for this and that, and considering I said I'd put photo's into the photographs part of the forum, but I'm tired and will go to bed soon. Guess we'll all try to tidy it up a bit in future? Anyway... here's a few photos I took from today but nothing much really. Just to note I got a txt from Richard in Amuri, he says at 4pm. "Just had a massive storm, 47mm in 1 hour! But lightning hit our internet dish! Non stop thunder too!" Guess that solves the reason as to why he hasn't posted yet.

Had my SLR set on Auto for some unknown reason!!! Pictures didn't come out how I would like, grrr.

Thanks Aaron for forwarding my message,yes massive storm alright,lightning every 30sec along with non stop rumbling for an hour,but it wasnt the internet dish that got hit i dont think,i recon because there was so much water running off the house that i think the lighting bolt hit the house and was earthed by the share amount of water pouring off the house,but for some reason it was only the computer that was fried,even with a surge protecter(i'm on friends laptop till fixed).The most amazing storm ive ever seen.
Had another storm pass within 10kms to the west Thursday evening and then another even closer at 4.00am this morning,so all and all a great few days for storms,ive got fantastic photos from last nights storm but i dont know how to load photos to forum with out going to photobucket and loading from there

[mikestormchaser]

Sunday would be my next pick! beena great week really all said and done in Canterbury and inland Canterbury! really cant complain at all.
Sundays set up will be a typical Southerly type stroms, so if they developed you might be looking at the good old buster rolling in with it

[Richard]

Getting the hang of this lappy now and have managed to load the photos of Thursday evenings two storms which past south within 10-15kms to the west of me.




After the first storm had moved south another one built behind it,5min after this photo it poured down with rain and a good number T&L strikes





The cloud formations were so neat after the storms had moved away

[NZstorm]

Thanks for the pics Richard.

Tim wrote

You need to look at the elevation scans of the radar to determine if the storm was actually elevated or not. Something we do not have access to. (unless you can see it of course)

I think the best approach for deciding on elevated storms is looking at the overall synoptic pattern and knowing whats possible/likely.

Visually an elevated storm would most likely look like a rainy mess. If you can see a base it would be flat and featureless.

[Lacertae]

I'm glad I've checked the models before MS changed their forecast this morning, I couldn't quite understand why only a low risk south of Ashburton.
Anyway I reckon it's worth going out after lunch, worst case scenario I can enjoy a beautiful day out in the country.