General March Weather

[Dale]

It really isn't looking too good over here, so a drought declaration is warranted. In saying that though.. we got a nice drop this morning (of rain that is) .. hopefully a little more over the next couple of days. Last weekend was basically enough for the ground to soak up, it didn't do much else otherwise. Thankfully.. growing up in South East Queensland up until 2007 taught me a lot about drought, water restrictions & conservation.. those of which I have put into immediate action in this household. Fingers crossed for a bit more rain over the next couple of days.. but not in 1 great hit, that will just do more harm than good.

[Manukau heads obs]

heavy shower of rain here...the sea breeze convergence line has been pushed back over us...most likely its like a convergence shower caused by the strenghthening easterly flow

[Dale]

Far cry from what you saw here only a couple of months ago Brian.. gone from bridge washouts & massive flooding to not enough rain to feed the stock.. the magic of weather!

[Richard]

Yes an amazing turnaround Dale,well its been blowing NW (30 40kph)here now since yesterday so hopefully bringing some rain to your side.
Very mild night with 16deg ATM

[Orion]

17.4 degrees here at present, NW, a few drops of rain just now;
sky reddening in the easterly quarter.

[Orion]

Double rainbow, photographed at Westerfield by one of my spies.

[spwill]

We had a 15min seabreeze convergence shower (light) here yesterday afternoon which seem to miss the cricket at Eden Park which is just down the road from me.
It has been quite showery on the Coromandel over recent days.

[melja]

Just left the coast (kumara) at 5pm and no rain there all weekend, nice and warm with sunny afternoons. 21deg

[melja]

Poor forecasting with the heavy rain on the coast, none in kumara or hokitika or Arthurs pass and very little to the south apart from haast. Not even close to the 300mm forecast with most gauges not even up to 50mm.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Not even close to the 300mm forecast with most gauges not even up to 50mm.

You get that,just like thunderstorm potential
....although Jim said on the weather this evening, a cold front delivered the sound of thunder,probably the result of some lightning, to Invercargill with the weak cold front that passed through, this afternoon.

[Razor]

Poor forecasting with the heavy rain on the coast, none in kumara or hokitika or Arthurs pass and very little to the south apart from haast. Not even close to the 300mm forecast with most gauges not even up to 50mm.

288mm at Milford....., over 100mm at Haast. It still has a bit of moving north to do overnight
Just saying

[melja]

Yes and all rain warnings now cancelled, just didn't seem to move far north.

[Razor]

As long as it stays away from Eden Park I don't care where it goes

[melja]

Haha yes a win in the cricket sound much better than rain in this case

[David]

Summery 24.7C max here today, fine sunny morning but became mostly cloudy from 1.30pm.

[Richard]

22deg here,certainly got that autumn feel now though.

[Manukau heads obs]

I see Sam from TV1 breakfast commented on the rain radar this morning
and he siad he checked with M/S and they said its insects

I can see a setting moon, no insects flying past that
no insects on my windows with the lights on

its an inversion layer again (bending the signal onto the ocean surface) (the wind dropped here at 4am and the temperature has droppd...fog has formed, etc)

[Richard]

An inversion layer is far more of a plausible explanation than insects,the number of insects it would take to show up on radar would be huge and given we are in drought conditions insects numbers would be well down.

Cold start to the day here,was thinking there may had been a bit of ice on the car roof,but not quite this morning,currently 4 deg

[Orion]

Quite misty here at present - visibility about 100 metres.
11.8 degrees.
No insects.

[Brassnz]

Re that insect/inversion layer thing, I noticed it on the rain radar one night last week as well. It appeared to show my area densely covered by whatever, but it was a calm starry night and certainly no plague of bugs.

[Weather Watcher]

Insects are quite large targets for a weather radar. Compare the size of a moth to a raindrop. Radar reflectivity is proportional to the diameter of a target (e.g. raindrop, bird, insect) raised to the sixth power, that is D^6. This means it doesn't take many insects to produce echoes on the radar. The broad size of the echoes doesn't imply a 'plague', there could only be a few large insects (e.g. moths at night) producing the echoes. Bird echoes are similar, although insects generally drift with the wind, while birds can fly against it.

[Michael]

Models appear as widespread rain likely just after the easter break with a depression over the country for a few days.

[Manukau heads obs]

when there is these echos, there is also a situation where the wind has dropped away quickly , with clear skies, and so a inversion layer develops at the surface
the last one there was a sea breeze that died off, i.e onshore wind...i.e insects are not going to be flying into that out to sea, where the echo was showing up

[03Stormchaser]

Insects are quite large targets for a weather radar. Compare the size of a moth to a raindrop. Radar reflectivity is proportional to the diameter of a target (e.g. raindrop, bird, insect) raised to the sixth power, that is D^6. This means it doesn't take many insects to produce echoes on the radar. The broad size of the echoes doesn't imply a 'plague', there could only be a few large insects (e.g. moths at night) producing the echoes. Bird echoes are similar, although insects generally drift with the wind, while birds can fly against it.

How many insects then does the radar need to show such a massive swarm?

Forest and Bird entomologist, Peter Johns has said a vast mass of the size seen on the radar would comprise billions of insects and is beyond comprehension. Now that was in relation to the Friday 22nd swarm and the early morning Feb 23 swarm. Other than these radar images are is no evidence of any swarm.

Even Peter Kreft said in the blog:

We’re not completely sure, but we strongly suspect the echo is swarms of insects

He didn't sound all that confident back then!

[David]

Starting to rain here