Looking dark to the TC direction and out to the east from here, with line of cloud with a wedge to the NW of TC.
Wind now light SW from a previous NE.
Light fading now.
Might see more when it gets darker ?
Hmm, after just having a moderate rain shower and the weather station reading 0mm I realised there must be something wrong with my rain gauge... thankfully taking the plug out of the transmitter circuit board and then replugging it in seems to have fixed the issue (maybe it had worked it's way loose somehow). Phew!
Anyway, I'll probably adjust the rainfall total for today (to 0.8mm as a guess), tomorrow.
Whoa what a chase! We where at the Ashburton River mouth right in the thick of it, lightning, hail,gustfront, waterspout and probably one of the scariest moments of my life, still shaking now! We were hit either with a downburst or a waterspout that made landfall, il write a full report once im home.
03Stormchaser wrote:Aaron watching an offshore Cb, Ashburton
Aaron superstar ! He's on all the shots lately ...
Back to tonight's chase, I didn't want to drive too far so I went to Coopers Lagoon hoping for an offshore cell to "pass in front of me" (I was feeling lazy). No luck, a line of showers was blocking my view to the south and I could hardly see the lightning experienced by Steve, Mike and Co down Ashburton. I took off at 8:30pm just after a gust front "dissolved", saw some lightning over Banks Peninsula (prob. towards Akaroa or Eastern Bays) on the way back home but I was too far away to do anything about it.
All I bring back are pictures of mammatus and backlit showers, but I'll deal with them tomorrow ... bed time now ...
Last edited by Lacertae on Tue 15/10/2013 21:44, edited 1 time in total.
NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:Nothing seen from here.
Must of been quite brief
Its still going on now, but getting pretty far off the coast and hard to see now. It may be a bit too far east to see from West Melton. Peaked at around 4-5 flashes per minute. Unfortunately I have nothing to take photos/videos with
NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:Nothing seen from here.
Must of been quite brief
Its still going on now, but getting pretty far off the coast and hard to see now. It may be a bit too far east to see from West Melton. Peaked at around 4-5 flashes per minute.
Sferically, not much picked up from the event at all here.
Squall coming through here now, with rain and strong SW winds. Too dark to see if the cloud resembles gust front.
03Stormchaser wrote:Whoa what a chase! We where at the Ashburton River mouth right in the thick of it, lightning, hail,gustfront, waterspout and probably one of the scariest moments of my life, still shaking now! We were hit either with a downburst or a waterspout that made landfall, il write a full report once im home.
Watched the gust front make land fall at the Ashburton River mouth. Saw quite a few Cg's, a distant waterspout, little rotation in the clouds and hail. Recorded winds gusts of 70kmph on my anemometer.
It was starting to hail and Aaron had just left in his car was it was parked behind mine. As I go to leave (Mike Stewart was in the car aswell) we are hit with a massive wind to the side of my car rocking it violently, then it appeared like it hit on multiple sides of the my wagon (Got a Subaru Grand Wagon, not a very light car at all) I grabbed the steering wheel as tight as I could and yelled at Mikey to hold on, with no idea what was going to happen next. I've been in 100km winds and this was worst than that, I thought we were going to roll at this point. Next second it feels like we are being lifted and I turn around and see my wagon is being lifted then dropped, lifted the dropped, this happened about 4 times. I'm unsure if it was lifting the wheels off the ground or not but it appeared like it was being lifted about a foot, more travel than the suspension.
At some point we slid as well unsure when that was but the whole experience only last probably 5-10 seconds, but felt like forever at the time. Even now 3.5 hrs later I still have that shaky feeling!!
No damage to my car, only noticeable thing that happened was the wing mirrors were bent towards the front.
Whether it was a tornado (waterspout that came ashore), a downburst, or just a strong gust im unsure. But right before packing up we witnessed rotations in the couds heading our way. What ever it was it sure got the blood flowing, wont stop me getting that close to a storm though!
Looking at the next 7 days it looks relatively calm for most of the country for the rest of this week and part of next week due to a ridge of high pressure coming off Australia setting up camp over NZ for a while. So it will make a change....
However Southland/Otago and South Canterbury could get another windy period due to a polar low pushing up against the ridge creating a tight pressure gradient.
Whakatane was a bust this afternoon. Good rain & wind earlier though.
