General April Weather

[mikestormchaser]

I see a potential thunderstorm set up for next Wednesday and Thursday for the north island. A sharp cold upper trough looks to be spreading up. First one for the wintry season to. Snow to 5-600m on the mountains even. Long way out though!

[Tornado Tim]

METVUW is showing a nice funnel cloud taken from Hamilton yesterday. I'm not surprised there was a funnel. It was that sort of afternoon where you kept an eye out for something like that. We did have some nice afternoon convection going on.

Certainly did, Raglan also got a Funnel cloud on the Convergence Line......

Posted on the Raglan Community Board:

[Nev]

Any more details Tim?

It's just that I was wondering if it may have been the same funnel-cloud posted on MetVUW, as that west Hamilton photographer did say it could have been as far west as Raglan at around 4:30pm.

[Tornado Tim]

Any more details Tim?

It's just that I was wondering if it may have been the same funnel-cloud posted on MetVUW, as that west Hamilton photographer did say it could have been as far west as Raglan at around 4:30pm.

Not yet, will find out more if I can.

Down to 4 this morning, these single digit lows were very quick to roll in. Certainly not a gentle roll towards them as we advance towards winter.

[Manukau heads obs]

compared to a 11C minimum here!

[SnwAddct]

7C at my place near Waitakere this morning. Bit of a shock to the system after such warm days and nights.

[Tornado Tim]

Any more details Tim?

Following up:

There isnt much detail apparently in the facebook photo posted, it was uploaded at 17.03 and the lady posting it wrote "Just happened", so it could very well be the same funnel!
Will see if I can get more specifics.....
Update: Wow, it looks like we have the same funnel! Just got info that the Photo was taken at 4.25PM!

[Nev]

Thanks Tim. Exactly the same time as the MetVUW pic, but from a slightly different angle by the looks.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Drove up to Seddon on Monday and it was rather moisturous all the way up there.
Made the car rather dirty though.

[Storm Struck]

That front last night really delivered some punchy showers over the plains, when the southerly initially hit around 4am it just bucketed down and furthermore after that around 5-6am.
10.6mm since 4am, and a few back end showers now.
Next week around Wednesday continues to show a decent cold blast moving in, this should bring a reasonable thunder hail set up late afternoon/evening for Canterbury with snow to around 600m.
The sea surface temperatures are still reasonably warm for this time of the year so this should help boost storm activity up the coast into the evening hours.
Here's hoping its been awhile since our last decent storm set up.

[matttbs]

That front last night really delivered some punchy showers over the plains, when the southerly initially hit around 4am it just bucketed down and furthermore after that around 5-6am.
10.6mm since 4am, and a few back end showers now.
Next week around Wednesday continues to show a decent cold blast moving in, this should bring a reasonable thunder hail set up late afternoon/evening for Canterbury with snow to around 600m.
The sea surface temperatures are still reasonably warm for this time of the year so this should help boost storm activity up the coast into the evening hours.
Here's hoping its been awhile since our last decent storm set up.

I hope your right about the thunder hail chances, has been the worst, most uneventful past few months that I can recall. Haven't posted on here in yonks!

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I hope your right about the thunder hail chances, has been the worst, most uneventful past few months that I can recall. Haven't posted on here in yonks!

Same here
That's why I have sort of given up my WM weather blog, why give out uninteresting weather information. ?
This current El "no ning nonggy" Niño period has lessoned my weather interests considerably.
I have never experienced such an uninteresting period of weather
If you look up on a weather website and they say the "Weeks Weather Highlights", I say , well there hasn't been any, except for weather events elsewhere, which is good luck, or bad luck to them, but nothing really has happened here.
I thought that with global warming, it would produce severe and interesting weather events, even in local locations, but obviously not, and the media do not go out on this ?

[RWood]

I hope your right about the thunder hail chances, has been the worst, most uneventful past few months that I can recall. Haven't posted on here in yonks!

Same here
That's why I have sort of given up my WM weather blog, why give out uninteresting weather information. ?
This current El "no ning nonggy" Niño period has lessoned my weather interests considerably.
I have never experienced such an uninteresting period of weather
If you look up on a weather website and they say the "Weeks Weather Highlights", I say , well there hasn't been any, except for weather events elsewhere, which is good luck, or bad luck to them, but nothing really has happened here.
I thought that with global warming, it would produce severe and interesting weather events, even in local locations, but obviously not, and the media do not go out on this ?

Perhaps you need to broaden your notion of what constitutes "interesting" weather. I find plenty of it interesting, yet locally there has been nothing in the categories of interest to you in recent times - I can't remember the last decent thunderstorm here.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

[quote="RWood"

Perhaps you need to broaden your notion of what constitutes "interesting" weather. I find plenty of it interesting, yet locally there has been nothing in the categories of interest to you in recent times - I can't remember the last decent thunderstorm here.[/quote]

January was "Interestingly" boring but other than that ?????

[Manukau heads obs]

when I spent 3 years in Canterbury I thought it was boring weather, and that was in the late eighties
so nothing much has changed

[NZstorm]

I find Auckland summer weather boring but the persistent fine weather is nice. Summers are too stable in Auckland.

Some weakly unstable air over the upper North Island tomorrow(Sunday) with low thunder chances for Waikato and upper Northland.
They should catch some heavy rain in the far north tomorrow.

[Richard]

Depends on what you would view as 'boring weather'! having only had one electrical storm pass over here the last three years is some what disappointing, but then i enjoy the foehn winds and anticyclonic summer days, so... boring weather? maybe one needs to build a holiday home in Congo Mirador.

[NZstorm]

when I spent 3 years in Canterbury I thought it was boring weather, and that was in the late eighties
so nothing much has changed

I think inland Canterbury near the foothills would have an interesting climate. Possibly one of the more interesting climates in NZ given the winter snow possibilities.

Internationally Oklahoma City has the worlds most interesting climate. Hawaii has the best climate.

[Richard]

when I spent 3 years in Canterbury I thought it was boring weather, and that was in the late eighties
so nothing much has changed

I think inland Canterbury near the foothills would have an interesting climate. Possibly one of the more interesting climates in NZ given the winter snow possibilities.

But living in these areas heavy snowfalls can be worrying time if you have livestock, and then you cant grow a number of trees because of snow damage.

[Bradley]

I found the year I lived in Sheffield (2013) at the base of the alps incredibly interesting - more storms more frosts more snow more extreme wind days more fogs more hot days in summer more cold days in winter more rainfall overall but in short sharp bursts so overall still plenty of sunshine - loved it

[matttbs]

I live amongst the foothills now and yes it can be interesting, but the last few months have just been plain and boring in my eyes. It's either cloudy and cool or sunny and average temp. Haven't had any considerable winds for quite a while now, no extremely hot days since the start of feb here, sure we have been lucky with moisture here, having reasonably regular rainfalls although small amounts but have kept things green but to me that is just normal stuff that one would expect. I want the stuff you don't get every day like hail or super strong winds, heavy as balls rain. I'd settle for a pathetic 1 clap wonder TS now seeing as we haven't even had that a single time since September. To me this is definately boring but that's just me

[Bradley]

This hasn't been a 'typical' El Niño for Canterbury that's for sure!!

[Storm Struck]

It has certainly been very boring as of lately the last storm day was in December 2015, although it was only one day what a pearla of a severe day it was.
The city got 2 decent thunderstorms with heavy hail and some landspout tornadoes near Hinds, which probably makes up for 2-3 average thunderstorm days in Canterbury.
What there has been a lack of is the inland heating and afternoon thunderstorms around the foothills and ranges, there was not one day in summer this happened when its normally averaging 4-5 days a year or season.
A warmer than normal March was quite interesting, but certainly for those enjoying the outdoors it was perfect weather.
Will this be the new norm extended summers or are we just simply going through climatical phases.
I think from next week should start getting interesting with these short sharp blasts, always present storm chances if the conditions are ripe and also will be setting the ski feilds up nicely for winter.
The colder air is surging northwards from the south Tasman more so now, tomorrows weather is anyones guess we could get 2-3 storm chances between now and the end of May.

[Manukau heads obs]

to be fair, its been more "boring" than normal weather here too last few months

[NZstorm]

Tuesdays GFS 250mb wind chart shows a subtropical jet approaching the top of the North Island.
The upper level divergence in the SE quadrant will assist with frontal lift over the North Island, possible thunder?