NZ Weather Forum

See that the Metvuw 7 day forecast charts show an intense depression approaching New Zealand on the 4th January - is this the remains of Cyclone Freda?

It sure is. Still a long way out but interesting to watch. Refer to the weather abroad topic, which will need it's title to be changed today no doubt. discussion regarding this storm is there at the moment.

Yes well worth a thread even this far out I believe. The last 4 or so runs have been very consistant even thios far out with plotting it. The latest just through shows the low making a direct hit on the north island. Will be very interesting to monitor the lead up to this one.

Gfs on metvuw have it hitting the north island with some intense winds on the SW corner of the storm

GFS still sticking to a direct hit on the North Island! Though ECMWF is predicting nothing of the sort at this stage

WeatherWatch is picking Freda to bring wet and windy conditions around Thursday.

"The weather will remain dry until Cyclone Freda brings back the wet and windy conditions around Thursday.

WeatherWatch analyst Richard Green said Kiwis should be prepared for plenty of rain.

Warnings have been issued for parts of the South Island. Milford, Greymouth, Hokitika and Nelson are expected to bear the brunt of the bad weather, according to Green."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=10856591

GFS is not picking Freda to hit the North Island anymore.

Unsure why westcoast south island be worse as models have it to the east as typically the path.means southerlies

This article is on the whole a bit odd

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=10856591

" Freda is travelling about 90km/h but will speed up by the time it hits New Caledonia.

"Cyclones tend to gain speed over warmer waters and Freda would have had time to get up to (about 130km/h) by the time it gets to New Caledonia," he said."

It seems like something has been misunderstood. Did he mean wind speeds of 90km/h or "travelling" (sic) at 90km/h?

Michael wrote:Unsure why westcoast south island be worse as models have it to the east as typically the path.means southerlies

Maybe they mixed Freda up with a mid latitude frontal system? Would not surprise me given the confusion that the Herald article seems to suffer from.

That is a terrible article. I cant make much out from it. It seems to be confused on a number of levels.

At its peak, Evan travelled at 270km/h

jamie wrote:That is a terrible article. I cant make much out from it. It seems to be confused on a number of levels.

At its peak, Evan travelled at 270km/h

As was their article about Ex-tropical cyclone Mitchell,which has now since been removed, posting how Cyclone Mitchell had formed but intact at the time of the article it was Ex tropical Cyclone Mitchell

I dont think Richard would have said that, just read the Freda article on the WW webiste which is correct. I think the author here has taken his creative licence abit to far!

Since WW is owned by NZHearald I am very surprised they would skew what WW say's....
How odd..... I suspect Phil will be having words to NZH if Richard didnt actually say what is in the article.

Anyway this thread is starting to go OT, back to Freda
Update: did a check on the Business Registry.

mattyj46 wrote:As was their article about Ex-tropical cyclone Mitchell,which has now since been removed, posting how Cyclone Mitchell had formed but intact at the time of the article it was Ex tropical Cyclone Mitchell

Presumably you're referring to an article posted on WW's site at 2pm yesterday (Sunday), as opposed to the NZ Herald article above. That story was actually based on a 24-hour-old Weatherzone story, which stated that, "it is expected to intensify into a category 2 system on Saturday evening and Sunday morning while remaining well offshore". WW's version said that it expected to intensify into a Cat 2 system on Sunday. It never did get past Cat 1 and the BoM declared it an Ex-Tropical Cyclone less than an hour after WW posted its version. So not surprised they pulled the story.

Also note that a previous WW story posted at 11am yesterday claimed that Freda had been upgraded to Cat 2, despite RSMC Nadi upgrading it to a Cat 3 at least 4 hours earlier. And this morn's story still claims it's a Cat 2, even though RSMC Nadi upgraded it to a Cat 4 early yesterday arvo and has remained so ever since, although it now appears to be weakening.

I also read a media story the other day, which still claims that Evan reached Cat 5... obviously a throw-back from 'NZ's Whether News Authority'. lol

P.S. I don't think WW has been owned by APN for some time, although they obviously still have close affiliations with the NZ Herald, 1ZB, etc.

P.P.S. Re the models, JTWC has repeatedly remarked that, 'Dynamic model guidance remains in poor agreement and continues to be erratic [or inconsistent], with the exception of ECMWF. The JTWC forecast continues to favour the ECMWF solution and is consistent with the previous forecast'. Currently, ECMWF ultimately has Freda transitioning well off the Queensland coast, in which case it would kinda make this thread redundant.

And so much for the older suggestion (if it really was from GFS) of a "direct hit on New Zealand". Reminds me once again why I ignore these things until events are much "closer" - and why I ignore 10-day weather forecasts 99% of the time.

models have it ecmwf fizzling out and some other depression of tropical origin east of us affecting in a weeks time