Severe thunderstorms warning Canterbury 8/12/2013

[dogmelon]

I watched that innocuous looking cloud out Razor's way just drop it's guts over a 5 minute period. I saw one little ic flash and weak bits of thunder from Hornby way. Its interesting enough.

[Razor]

Met service issued severe t storm warning for chch now, that's our storm its still intensifying it seems. House shaking thunder

[Lawrence]

Looking like one building up near Lyttelton to the east. Just had a large rumble here with small light shower.Looking like most of the action is still more inland.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Weak funnel cloud to the west, but now gone back into cloud

[03Stormchaser]

South of Darfield 2min ago looking west

[Lawrence]

Lower level southerly cloud racing in now,looking really interesting

[Skywatcher]

This is the storm that MS have a warning for. Looking SE from here 15 minutes ago.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

I see Severe Thunderstorm Warning issued now for that cell 5 mins ago, heading south from Taitapu

[03Stormchaser]

Nice photo Steven!

[Lawrence]

Looking like a cell heading straight for us to the south.LOOKS MEAN

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Radar suggests that it may be dying off into more general rain bands now...

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Very mixed looking sky now with a SW and lower cloud rolling in and becoming cooler.
Few spits of rain here and SW.
Looks as if the sky is set to explode or .... just clear up?

[Lawrence]

lightning now with thunder,looks menacing and dark over towards Leeston.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Some claps to the north of here, just now

[jamie]

That cell that developed right on the edge of Christchurch at 3.20pm maxed out the radar on the 3.30 scan. It has pink in it.... The colour beyond green. That's the most intense cell I've ever seen on radar. I have access to the 60km range scan. Incredible speed at which that one developed.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

Prolonged torrential down-poor at the moment, heavy stuff lining us up from the north.

[Richard]

Starting to look very ominous to the south now,some of the tallest cb's ive seen,like to know how high these would be

[Powermad]

I'm just east of Oxford following multiple cells towards northern Christchurch. Have to abandon chase as it's a school day tomorrow for my copilot..

[Storm Struck]

I took after that cell over southern Christchurch but by the time I reached Hornby it died off, then attempted to head inland up tram road too much heavy rain although it has cleared up again.
Storm still going off inland but I would say will cross here in the next hour or so, a very fresh breezy E-NE wind here too at the moment which will be good infeed for that storm.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Starting to look very ominous to the south now,some of the tallest cb's ive seen,like to know how high these would be

Thunder now to the north of here, so you might be in luck there, Richard.
Interesting, the sferics seem to becoming in louder and more significant, than previous sferics for today.
Must be a different type of lightning?

[Richard]

This is the cell that powermad mentioned near oxford

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Nice heavy rain now. No hail thank goodness.

[mikestormchaser]

Great chase in the end today, chased inland by myself this time, past darfield and in towards hororata way so yes dogmelon you were exactly right.
Was hard to film though with the rain, just one of those chases where i was either in the car trying to film on the right side of my car out of the rain not easy.. but most of the lightning was inner cloud so not to many bolts.
However i did see some forks, one of witch was extremly to close for comfort with an almighty explosion.
Anyways followed through hororata and then crossed into coalgate and sat around there for awhile, then onto darfield where i was under torrential rain, no hail just heavy rain.
Took a few photos witch ill post up later,and ironicaly ran into steve and aaron on the way back towards Christchurch.

[Richard]

Well you headed in the right direction Jason because my area is going to miss out completely........gutted

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

It's quite dark here.
It just shows you how thick the cloud is.