Razor wrote:It was quite amusing to hear on several sources of media yesterday the rapid backtracking on the "Weather Bomb" naming convention. It was very refreshing to hear the correct information being disseminated in a number of places. Particular plaudit to Radio Live especially Alison Mau who was at pains to have the concept of explosive cyclogenesis/ bombing lows PROPERLY explained and the overused "weather bomb" phrase well and truly shelved.
I think this came about from the well worded Metservice facebook post on Monday.
Now lets see if mainstream media can grasp gust fronts, tornadoes, dust devils and microbursts... and forget the with mini along the way
Unfortunately today's discussion of hurricane force gusts has somewhat undermined this worthy aspiration...
They will nearly always use the wrong terminology if they think the public understands it better then the technical term, I only heard the media last week talking about "tidal waves" after an undersea earthquake
Razor wrote:I think this came about from the well worded Metservice facebook post on Monday.
It was more likely based on the earlier Press Release below, which was also posted on MS's website news page (although that doesn't appear to be working atm).
"...The strongest winds gusts in Otago, of 135kmh, were in Nugget Point, but potentially damaging wind gusts were hitting the rest of the region, with 113kmh gusts at Swampy Summit, near Dunedin, and 96kmh gusts at Dunedin Airport..." - sounds nasty down there.
We driving north through south Waikato...Good rain falling. Very thick..low level..dark...rain is heavier than the rain radar suggests .which must be beaming over the top.Good rain for the farms
"...The strongest winds gusts in Otago, of 135kmh, were in Nugget Point, but potentially damaging wind gusts were hitting the rest of the region, with 113kmh gusts at Swampy Summit, near Dunedin, and 96kmh gusts at Dunedin Airport..." - sounds nasty down there.
We just drove from Kurow to Waikouaiti and there was signs of significant winds at various points. The wind around Duntroon were very very strong - luckily I was running with it at my back so it helped a lot!
Then towards Oamaru a lot of tree and branches down, likewise towards Hampden/Moeraki areas, which makes sense with the 130km/hr quoted from the ODT. Wind at home is not that strong at all at the moment, and my weather station maxed out at 70km/hr at 9:42 am. My station doesn't record wind well, so actual gusts would have been higher than that, but that's the 2nd highest I've recorded in the 14months that we've been back here.
Manukau heads obs wrote:but you know as well as I do that NWers in the canterbury plains are a fickle thing
sometimes the wind pressure works to create wind other times the pressure release is somewhere else (e.g banks peninsular or futher inland in the gorges etc)...its just how it all works out...not easy to predict
I agree with you on this. It is safe to put out a general warning for all areas in an area where high winds are forecasted. Here, there wasn't much wind, well, the ENE persisted well into the afternoon then the occasional north or NW came through and at times it was calm. The real influence of the NW was from about 6am this morning until the SW came through around 2pm, with similar wind strengths.
looks like alot of damage (flooding/slips) in the Westport area etc and wind damage in Otago (and southern NI)
when watching the news..all spots that had warnings in place
not your typical summer weather pattern (more typical of August)
