NZ Weather Forum

Chris Raine wrote:Thunderstorm inland from Maheno and Herbert from 5.30pm to 6pm . Lots of fork lightning . Seems to have formed on southerly gust front now through Oamaru at 6.30pm

Thanks for that Chris. Could get a lightning show off the coast here later tonight , I hope. Probably dies before it gets here unless of any forward development.

Heavy rain and some small hail here now.

showers are now developing fast offshore from ashburton, i would be keeping a close eye on those buggers as they move closer.
Also the mian trough is getting it self organised behind that.

Good spotting there Mikey.
Wind now SW here with temperature dropping. Might get a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder here overhead around 3am

yeh showers looking beefy. heading straight for chch. bout 11 i reckon. but then more later on. could get interesting?

lightning tracker seems to be picking up that blob in the waimak gorge too

Captain Salty wrote:lightning tracker seems to be picking up that blob in the waimak gorge too

What blob. the lightning tracker at the moment seems to be picking up stikes around the Hawkes Bay area where according to MetService's thunderstorm chart for today is the only area in NZ not covered by a thunderstorm warning?

blob on the rain radar around Mt White. Skywatcher's tracker had 3 strikes from it, fizzled now

Must of been a rodent flash

hmm i think that will be it, radar seems to be weakoning, my guess is the lack of surface heating now. if it was summer then we would of been in for something good tonight!
That NW killed everything as i always thought may have been the case.
Oh well roll on next chance.

Yes.Sadly, the first thunderstorm of the 2012/2013 Thunderstorm Season was a failure. I blame global warming
Edit: I base the Canterbury Thunderstorm season to go from the 1st of October to the 31st of March, especially in the El Nino-ish years.

few harsh looking showers coming through in 30mins maybe

After today's failure, the next possible round could be next WE on Saturday.
Will have to weight and sea

Something just fired up at Birdlings flat few strikes on the tracker and purple on the radar with that line, hmm knew i should have stuck around mikes or maybe headed to lincoln area.

all gone jase, no serferics on am radio either, done and dustaed, blowing a nice SW here now so maybe the odd shower over night thats about it, night all

Flared up abit again as it heads over the Peninnsula, nothing too major for the city though.
Yes unfortunatly a very big bust day in the end, which is sad because every ingrediant was there for storms and decent storms too.
But its that one factor we all hate that had to show up the NWer, i honestly didnt think it would be a problem today the isobaric flow to me suggested no NW only from North Canterbury northwards.
Given the fact that weve had simular set ups before and its remained E-NE for many areas.
Oh well onwards and upwards.

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:Yes.Sadly, the first thunderstorm of the 2012/2013 Thunderstorm Season was a failure. I blame global warming

I would have thought the 4th of September event was the first for the 2012/2013 season ...

Anyway I will post some shots or time-lapse videos whenever I can deal with them.

Not a complete bust, saw lightning, hail, heard thunder and at stages pretty decent Cu build ups.... What more could you ask for?

Got the thunderstorm out on the peninsula just before midnight, heavy rain (no hail) beginning just before.

A few time-lapse videos with a ratio of 1 second of video = 1 minute real-time. I would put them all in the same montage if I wasn't dealing with software corruption :
- weak Cu giving little showers towards the Rangitata Mouth (near Orari Bridge, 15:19/15:31) : http://alpha-nz.net/PhNZ/DSC_0749.mov
- an other weak Cu developping (near Arundel, 15:45/15:55) : http://alpha-nz.net/PhNZ/DSC_0754.mov
- waiting for the southerly change (Arundel-Rangitata Rd, 16:12/16:27) : http://alpha-nz.net/PhNZ/DSC_0759.mov
- just as the southerly change kicks in, air becomes unstable (Arundel-Rangitata Rd, 17:09/17:19) : http://alpha-nz.net/PhNZ/DSC_0762.mov
- gust front heading my way pretty fast, I did shoot until the rain got me (near Peel Forest, 18:10/18:20) : http://alpha-nz.net/PhNZ/DSC_0781.mov

i enjoyed them,thanks for taken the time to share them with us

No worries, they are fun to shoot and check on the field.
The tricky part is that you can't see the same amount of cloud movement to the naked eye, on the first vid I didn't realise that Cu with showers moved so fast towards the coast !