Thunderstorms possible coastal Otago/Canterbury 30/11/13

[Weather Watcher]

Look at that storm coming up just about to hit Ashburton, some good white showing on the radars.
Me and mike are about to head out to I think Birdlings Flat soon will be the best option as i dont think it will hit Christchurch, but if it was me i would have a severe thunderstorm warning MS .
I think Aaron might be out there at the moment near Ashburton.

We're monitoring it....

[Orion]

Hailing again (hailstones a bit bigger this time - 5mm?) with steady rain. 10.4deg.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Observing from here now, things seem to be setting down as the sun sets in the west reducing it's influence.
Lots of cloud around but no threatening things, like hail, which now look less likely, thank goodness.

[Lacertae]

Due to my car overheating in hot sunny conditions I had to set shop at the end of Chetsey Kyle Rd near Pendarves, didn't see much apart from a couple of ICs and one CG over the ocean (couldn't manage a shot), and what I believe was an embryo of funnel cloud around 6:30pm over the ocean roughly by the Rakaia River Mouth. A small line of low clouds showed some rotation for a good 15 minutes, nothing major as far as speed, but at one point a "tendril" seemed to develop downwards and gather some material around. It lasted about 30 seconds but I couldn't see evident signs of rotation, just that downward "development", and I didn't bother with a shot as I had my camera rolling for lightning further south …

[tich]

Looked promised to southwest of Chch this evening, but must've moved offshore.

[Storm Struck]

Me and Mike attempted a chase out to Birdlings Flat where I thought even though the storm was weakening the area does ramp things up, we seen a few strikes on the way there but apon arrival it just died.
A brief shower of rain/ very tiny hail and one peel of thunder, abit disappointing considering how good the storm was around Ashburton.
Maybe in the future when these set ups of W-SW ocurr we will just head south instead of trying to catch it at Birdlings.

[Thunder]

Got one photo of lightning yesterday, not framed the best but couldn't manage anything else. I was hoping for a nice bit of lightning through this Rainbow but alas nothing. Sigh...

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[Richard]

Neat photos

[Orion]

V.G. photos!

[spwill]

Your photography is very good Aaron, nice sharp detail there.

[Thunder]

Thanks! It's a battle keeping the lense free of rain drops, getting into an open field etc etc. Even then if you get lightning in a shot it doesn't neccasserily mean it's a good photo as the composition might be bad or whatever... And yes I'm always weary of keeping things in focus

Took a crop of that bolt so you can it a little closer here. Being at the edge of the frame it's slightly skewed a bit due to the nature of a wide angle lense but oh well... still cool!

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[spwill]

I need to invest in a wide angle lens and a lightning trigger sometime , yes, rain can really spoil opportunities for lightning photos.


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[Nev]

Interesting story about a damaging lightning strike to a property north of Oamaru on Saturday...

'Narrow escape after lightning hits home' - Otago Daily Times (also posted on WW)

What's striking about this story (apart from the fact that surge-protectors are next to useless against lightning), is that damage appears to have only been confined to appliances connected to phone-lines.

[tgsnoopy]

After 13 odd years with Telecom, that doesn't surprise me one bit.

The Telecom line is a conductor to another Earth.

With lightning current (in thousands of Amps) times earth resistance the point of the strike can rise many of thousands of volts relative to the true earth potential. This can cause some of the lightning current to seek another earth, often via electronics into the phone line.

Damage I've seen over the years can be very eye opening.