Cold blast, Sunday 22nd January 2012

[Bencla]

Was a cracker as it passed over Fernside then Rangiora , pictures to follow

[Skywatcher]

Saw a few CGs from Dawsons Rd (might have captured one on video) after the cell had moved north and the torrential rain cleared.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Finally some thunder over the city

...instead of below ground for a change

[Orion]

Heard a few peals of thunder, saw one brilliant flash of lightning nearby; some pea-sized hail mixed with rain; all around 5.30 - 5.50pm. (Had unplugged computer for safety some time earlier.) Plenty of rain earlier in the day.
Temp. was up to 14 degrees at one point but is back now to 11, & was 9deg. most of this morning.
Snow on Mt Hutt, Mt Somers etc.

[melja]

Great storm in rangiora, about 20mins with around 20 flashes seen with a good half to ground and constant thunder too.7
Came back from the coast around 6pm and its looking very winter like over the pass with snow down below bush line, heavy snow falling on top of AP with 1C and only 3C in arthurs pass township.
Even a good amount of snow on the west coast mountains and thats two sundays in a row now its been like that so that cant be normal at all.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Seems to of died away now but there is still alot of voluptuous cloud around.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Just had another hail shower here. Squall came through blowing it horizontal. Back to sunny and calm and CU down to the south visible again.

[Bencla]

[Manukau heads obs]

cold air has arrived up here now...15C here now

[Skywatcher]

Nice coating of hail, Bencla. It was just very heavy rain here in Templeton.

There was a bright rainbow between the squalls at about 8:10pm.

[Thunder]

Oh the pain of not being able to chase, had to work..... arghh. Steve followed it north and sounds like he briefly saw a small funnel but while on the highway so couldn't take a photo. Then saw a rotating base at another point in time, will be interesting to see his footage tomorrow.

It sort've all worked out how I imagined it might and it was a good setup, was touch and go as that first front hanged around a little longer then I thought, no NE came in either by the sounds but the trough seemed to be vigorous enough.

Cheers
Aaron

[trickytiger]

went for a drive up to hanmer for tea and struck part of the thunderstorm on the way back, some heavy rain too had wipers on full doing 80km/hr and couldn't see much. Had a few flashes of lightning, quite windy also seemed to be some rotation.

[03Stormchaser]

That rotating base put th shits up me as it was directly overhead, awesome chase, bombared with cgs at one point, hope th video comes out ok.

[tich]

Showery from about 4pm onwards out on BP; bit of hail about 6.30pm, but no thunder/lightning. Southerly now almost gale at times.
Good coating of snow visible on Alps as I came over from Chch this afternoon.

[mikestormchaser]

yes great chase in end, Went out with jase earlier in the day to birdlings flat and watched a big CB off shore from about ashburton to keep going offshore..., however we did see a big CG come out of it so was rather close.
We then decided to head back and thats when things started to ramp up! witch was a good option in the end as things were turning on shore and up the coast more.
We chased inland heading towards west melton, hit some really heavy rain and bit of hail.
I decided to turn into a random stetch of road witch tunrd out rather good as we got right into the area clear of rain etc and could film the storm as it headed out to rangiora! but me being not the brightest spark have just checked my recorder relising i recored 5 seconds of the storm when there was lightning and must of bumped the button and turn it off!!!! grrr
We chased it north bit all to little to late, it was weakoning.
Never the less its the best storm day this summer so far! but sound slike you were right in the spot to be Steve.
Cheers

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I took some photos today on my internal dirty lens camera. Will post them up tomorrow.
It was probably the heating prior to the 6:15pm thunderstorm coming through which sent things going as even though there have been a few 'gustos' coming through since then, it has been much colder, and hasn't enhanced any more thunderstorm activity despite the unstableness of the atmos.

[Lacertae]

Steve followed it north and sounds like he briefly saw a small funnel but while on the highway so couldn't take a photo. Then saw a rotating base at another point in time, will be interesting to see his footage tomorrow.

Ah so that's where he was, he never told me ! Keeping the funnel for yourself hey Steve ?
Hope you've got some good footage anyway, I'm glad we all went different ways and finally covered most of the ground ! It would have been a shame to hear reports of interesting things without any of us shooting it hard.

I took the inland option west of Chch and got really confused as stuff popped a bit all over the place, and I couldn't see **** through the clouds or showers at times. Things got really exciting down Mayfield at one point but I was a bit too far and the farking farmland trees prevented me from following what was happening with the lowered base before it evolved too much.
Too lazy to repost all my shots here, if you're interested follow the link to the public album on FaceBook : http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... f8d98908d6

[NZstorm]

It sort've all worked out how I imagined it might and it was a good setup, was touch and go as that first front hanged around a little longer then I thought, no NE came in either by the sounds but the trough seemed to be vigorous enough.

Well done Aaron, you picked up on the secondary trough well.

There was some upper flow there yesterday but not the NE to provide shear.

[Razor]

Wow we were coming back from The Sounds yesterday. Hit one decent storm crossing the Awatere around 5pm, fresh snow on the kaikouras down to about 1000m

Then hit the second storm coming into the Waipara from Greta Valley around 7pm. Just about the most insane driving conditions I've ever seen, torrential cloudburst with small hail and several large and VERY close lightning flashes. Will post some pics later, we felt like we were driving into the abyss.

Most amazing thunderstorm I think I have seen for years.

[tich]

Still showery out on BP this morning; heavy showers earlier with abit of hail in 1 of them and a strong southerly. Kind of situation that's bring snow to low levels if it were in winter.

[03Stormchaser]

Couple cg stills from Yesterday:

vlcsnap-2012-01-23-20h37m24s50.png

vlcsnap-2012-01-23-20h40m53s181.png

Great chase yesterday, witnessed a weak funnel that was probably north of Kaiapoi out of a small cu cloud that developed very quickly then died just as fast. Sat between Rangiora and Woodend and got blasted by the gust front. Witnessed a dozen Cgs I guess around me but was trying to conserve camera battery so only manage a couple on tape (bigger battery in the pipeline) As the gust front approached this cloud base formed above me and had a slow rotation to it, actually put the shits up me abit as I wasn't sure if this was intensifing or not. Headed north following the storm to about Great Valley, couldnt really film as I was driving and really needed someone with me, couldnt stop either as it was heading at a rate of knots.

[Storm Struck]

Yes a fair good storm as it headed north and inland, where we sat and watched it at Ruapuna area.
A few people at work today had thier Phone lines,My Sky, and some house hold appliances fried while others lost power for some time overnight, i am thinking a bolt hit one of the large powerlines near Tram Road Cust end.
Some photos from yesterday at Birdlings and Ruapuna storm, ive had to blur a spot that showed up on the photos obviously something on the inner lense of the camera but with some photoshop they have come out ok i think.
I havnt got around to putting up the vids yet from the past few chases but i am sure this will get sorted at some stage when i have time to sit down and be patient .
Got 3 bolts on the video camera from yesterday all IC, but lightning none the less.
Hmm i see a cold snap coming for Friday again, however it does come in overnight Thursday so could be a tad late for storms but i guess anything is possible at this time of the year with very cold air systems like these.

Birdlings 001.jpg

Birdlings 002.jpg

Birdlings 003.jpg

Birdlings 004.jpg

[Storm Struck]

A few more of the Proper trough/line storms from Ruapuna.

Ruapuna Storm.jpg

Ruapuna Storm 002.jpg

Ruapuna Storm 003.jpg

[spwill]

Good photos

I see Queenstown had a high of just 12C today, Milford Sound reached 23C.

[Andy]

Good photos

I see Queenstown had a high of just 12C today, Milford Sound reached 23C.

A good dusting of snow to the south and no sun was the cause. It was cold here this morning starting on 5 degrees, but warmed up to 18 late in the afternoon when the sun decided to the shine. Back to summer tomorrow hopefully.