NZ Weather Forum

Had a few good long rumbles of thunder here between 2:25 & 2:45pm this afternoon, along with some heavy rain, gusty winds and also noticed big jump in pressure as it passed over.

Tornado Tim wrote:As far as I am concerned tornado's aren't small or mini, they should be named exactly what they are. Eg: Landspout or Tornado.
I don't understand whats wrong with calling a supposed "mini" tornado a tornado/landspout because irrespective of size or destructive power they are still the same.

I agree with you Tim. I was just being sort of sarcastic by calling it a mini-tornado as here has been a lot of discussion on this forum about the term which the media conned a few years back.
It just like the word 'thundery' which I hate. It's either a thunderstorm or not.

It was an interesting weekend for sure. Included watching & photographing the incoming cold Southerly front arriving in Dunedin from Mount Cargill. Even had lightning hit the tower whilst there. Started with light small hail then switched to snow just as I was leaving for the airport. A good heavy pea sized hail shower between Mosgiel & the airport.

Bummer the ATR72's brakes jammed on and cancelled the 2nd of 3 afternoon flights to Christchurch. I was extremely fortunate to have a seat on the remaining flight that actually made it, even if I did have to run the Christchurch Airport labyrinth to get to the gate just in time to get through to Wellington.

Sorry the photo's are in Raw and I'm too busy presently to even look at them. Hopefully will add some later.

Yes they had snow to about 150m elevation in Dunedin yesterday.

Chilly 6C but atleast its clear and there is a warming trend next couple of days.

Not cold enough for frost here but got down to 3.4°C, pretty chilly for late October!

great to see a sunny day!!!

Really dry air today, humidity is down to 40% here, dewpoint under 1°C at times

David wrote:Really dry air today, humidity is down to 40% here, dewpoint under 1°C at times

Humidity has been down to 33% - a new record for me

yes this is very dry air for us!

By the way yesterday I was playing with my camera on the turbulent skies, and while at the top of the Diamond Harbour/Port Levy road I spotted a short-lived (<10s) small (in "length") fair weather funnel cloud. No possible mistake, the sun was shining right behing it and showing the fast rotation really well. I couldn't capture it as I was walking back with all my gear packed up, so I stayed around for an other hour but couldn't capture more than "orographic-induced" vorticity (air blowing down from Mt Herbert lifted by Mt Evans before going down towards the ocean). The following video shows the kind of stuff happening most of the time ... the wind was strong and sustained at times but it didn't seem to be enough for an other funnel.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/seabirdnz/ ... hotostream

Auckland Airport was 17/-4 at 2pm with 23% humidity

Noticed that too David. Not very often at all Auckland has dewpoints below 0°C.

I see cape Turnagain,wairarapa has been gusting to 100kts (180kmh), and averaged as high as 80 kts
in the last few hours
Castle point has been gusting to 80 kts

there is a big lee trough going up the east coast of both islands
and with the air mass over the top of the SI and lower NI being stable, near the ridge of high pressure, its reluctant to cross the ranges...and so Manuwatu gorge and the eastern wairarapa coastline is the valve release


thats the strongest winds around, Feavoux straight, Invercargill comes in second

Some pretty Strong NW gusts here overnight, Don't have my anemometer up anymore but the gusts Must have been over 100km.

Not even a breaze in Rangiora over night, none yesturday too.

Same here to snowstormwatcher,would have been one of the strongest NW winds weve had for a while,pretty much died down now though.........no hold on another big gust

Looks to me like a chance of afternoon storms for the upper NI on wednesday afternoon at this current stage. Will follow this as il be eligable for chasing since im on leave for the next 4 weeks as of tomorrow for my wedding

Fresh to strong southeasterly wind-change arrived here about 10.15am;
temp. then was 17.0 degrees, now 16.0.
A bit of low brownish-grey cloud rushing in from the direction of the coast.

what if there is epic storms in the waikato on your wedding day?!

Can't remember if you have the same saying in english but in France we say "Rainy wedding, happy wedding". I'd love to know what it'll be in case of epic storms ...

we could have a weather meet and crash the wedding party!,LOL

Manukau heads obs wrote:what if there is epic storms in the waikato on your wedding day?!

haha thats what i want. I want one of those really nice days where cloud build ups produce a nice storm towards the Kaimais and we can then watch and hear the thunder into the evening. As long as its fine until 5.30pm ill be happy!

Some NW overnight but not as strong here as what was expected.
Nice day before a cold dry and cloudless southerly moved through just before lunch.
Temperature drop in a couple of hours despite of bright photosynthesising sunshine
Some boring SC moving in from the west later.

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:Some NW overnight but not as strong here as what was expected.
Nice day before a cold dry and cloudless southerly moved through just before lunch.
Temperature drop in a couple of hours despite of bright photosynthesising sunshine
Some boring SC moving in from the west later.

At least the weather comments here on Ch'ch seem reasonably objective - to find the biggest whinger (about Ch'ch) imaginable, go to city-data.com and find its weather section.

Being hit by a torrential downpour the last 10mins here. Radar shows some random cell popping up, very small but its very heavy!!