General October Weather

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Torrential rain here last 30mins. Sky cut out. Plenty surface flooding and just so happen to have a weather station here (got the family interested) showing 24.6mm in last 30mins!

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Nothing on the news (TV One) about today's damaging NW Gales, here in Canterbury.
Probably because no-one has been killed because of falling trees, downed powerlines etc.

[Nev]

^ There was this video. lol

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

^ There was this video. lol

Nice One. Thanks Nev

[Captain Salty]

The 50knot upper flow will push some of those cb's onto the Canterbury foothills today.

heard a few claps of thunder in Arthur's Pass today and further east

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Today's maximum gusts must of been in Canterbury not where MetService recorded them.
I haven't got a meter to register wind gusts but some gusts were very strong here

[jamie]

Haha the video is funny. Never seen anything like it.

[tich]

Gusting at times to gale force out on Banks Peninsula from about midafternoon to a few hours ago. Out here the norwester comes in gusty spells with lighter breezes in-between.

[Richard]

8 mm more of rain over night on top of the 6mm yesterday

[melja]

Not much weather down in twizel, bit of spillover rain not much wind and no elevated thunder or the like.

[NZstorm]

Looks cold down south, 3C in Invercargill with showers! Airmass looks very cold over Dunedin too with 500mb -35C but the air is too dry for much precip there.

Hoping the north can catch rain off the next system due mid week. Don't want to see things getting too dry for the farmers up this way.

[spwill]

Fine in the north so far for the holiday weekend, not much wind. Very much on the outer with this system up here, great for all those that have gone camping.

Perhaps some records for dry and wet this October, Milford Sound having it's wettest October on record.

[Nev]

must be heading for one of the warmest years on record for NZ at this rate....

Could well be. Early days yet as we've still got a couple of months to go, but the national average temp for the year so far is running at about 0.7C above the 1971-2000 normal. Only 1998 (+0.9C) and 1999 (+0.8C) have been warmer since 'reliable' records began over 100 years ago.

[RWood]

Fine in the north so far for the holiday weekend, not much wind. Very much on the outer with this system up here, great for all those that have gone camping.

Perhaps some records for dry and wet this October, Milford Sound having it's wettest October on record.

No it isn't - possibly for the AWS only with its shorter record (1215mm to 26th), but Milford Sound manual (records started 1929) had 1917mm in October 1988 - its wettest ever month, in its wettest ever year. It has 2 days missing to the 26th, 900mm in the other 24. So the AWS would have to record another 700+mm in the last 5 days of the month to top the local record.

[spwill]

Thanks RWood for that info.

[wembley]

Interesting to see the average temps for the whole year when it ends.

[David]

I see Queenstown had a high of 6 yesterday. How unusual is that for late October?

[spwill]

I see Queenstown had a high of 6 yesterday. How unusual is that for late October?

I think the day was mostly around 3 or 4C, down to 1.1C at one stage when I looked in the afternoon , rare cold for late October.

[tich]

Showers clipped Banks Peninsula overnight and at first this morning - even had abit of hail sometime around 7am. Light dusting of snow on some high peaks, but gone now.

[Manukau heads obs]

with well forecasted cold snap and real time weather data and rain radar available on your cell phones
my question is
why did the climbers not turn back earlier?
This cold snap was shown to have very cold temperatures at altitude...

[Richard]

Yes some people do some dumb stuff aright by not checking the forecast first,but then i know people who say "they are always wrong",they are the ones that get court out.

[Manukau heads obs]

I do know that when you are cold, and tired, you make poor decisions...your brain is not functioning very well..

[Tornado Tim]

Damb, my weather console went blank again, which means it was running solely from the battery compartment and not from mains.
I investigated a little further and found a big nic in the cable on the negative side, not entirely sure how it got there. There some little cerated edges where the cut occurred on the cable so I presume its either the cat's having a play with the cable or mice that the cats bring through the cat hatch!

Anyway the cable is fixed with some handy electrical "Butt" connectors and WX station is back online

[jamie]

with well forecasted cold snap and real time weather data and rain radar available on your cell phones
my question is
why did the climbers not turn back earlier?
This cold snap was shown to have very cold temperatures at altitude...

Yes some people do some dumb stuff aright by not checking the forecast first,but then i know people who say "they are always wrong",they are the ones that get court out.

Yea i personally knew Hiroki through Uni of Auckland days when i was studying geography. He had a huge ammount of experience on mountains, so im not sure what made them so late to reach the top and therefore be caught by the storm. Perhaps it was poor judgement of the impeeding weather conditions. But the first group made it back fine. So something held these guys up and then they split into a further 2 goups and even those guys made it back down. Perhaps they shouldnt have continued to the top

The the speed at which conditions can change on cold mountains scary especially when it goes from calm to whiteout and gale within what seems minutes.

[jamie]

We had a few rain drops earlier. More unstable here than forecast?