NZ Weather Forum

Don't know what happened today.
Was expecting a cold southerly change with rain then clearing up this evening.
All we got was high cloud cover, light patchy rain and mild westerlies?
Now it's nice and sunny with a slight easterly?

Driving back into Chch just half an hour ago there was a shade of a shelf cloud and then a downpour between Kaiapoi and the city. Quite impressive. It's headed out to sea now.

Looks impressive from this side too Chris. Something is brewing, got that look about it.

Brief heavy rain in Amberley which felt like it had melted hail in it, followed by some deep long rumbles of thunder from the northeast as the storm departed.

Rogue wrote: ↑Tue 04/12/2018 23:41
Matt spotted what I called a shear funnel (?) Formed towards the front of the storm and was not attached in any way to the cloud base

Horseshoe funnel is the commonly used name. I can't say I have seen one in NZ but I have seen them in USA and not necessarily around storms, but certainly in unstable humid air.

TonyT wrote: ↑Wed 05/12/2018 18:23 Brief heavy rain in Amberley which felt like it had melted hail in it, followed by some deep long rumbles of thunder from the northeast as the storm departed.

Yes, there could be sporadic lightning along the current rainband moving along the eastern side of the Alps
Re, the posting at the top of this page from me, the sunshine gave way to low cloud moving in from the east with the current weather scenario hindering observation and thus cooling of temperature.

Coming in from the west, the radar looks busy and the sky looks heavy.

Had 11mm so far today and there should be more to come yet, there's no wind at all here at the moment

Chris W wrote: ↑Wed 05/12/2018 20:04 Coming in from the west, the radar looks busy and the sky looks heavy.

Yes certainly torrential by Canterbury's standards. CHCH could see 40mm tonight.. maybe

Looking dark and bleak to the north of here. Only heard one sferic on the AM band.
Light NE here and a few spits of rain.

Solid looking rainband inland that's for sure

Bloody heavy in Rangiora

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A couple of rumbles just heard in behind the 4 Peaks area

Just had a fantastic and spectacular thunderstorm in Geraldine.
Never seem to seen some bright and rather thick horizontal lightning flashes. WOW
Being sporadic, hard to record.
Moving north to you Aaron in Mt. Somers

A photo.
shame I didn't record the horizontal lightning as it was rather spectacular
If you had someone hold some thick spagetti at each end of the photo, under that cloud, that's what the lightning looked like.
The horizontal lightning with 2 layers, I saw twice, which I thought was quite amazing and very bright.
3 other flashes occured with one having a fork dropping below it.
I don't know if the Blitz recorded them.

Your getting them good john since you moved from west Melton!
Just standard rain here in rolleston, nothing to exciting.
Wev had a heap of rain this year, esp the last 2 months.

mikestormchaser wrote: ↑Wed 05/12/2018 22:23 Your getting them good john since you moved from west Melton!
Just standard rain here in rolleston, nothing to exciting.
Wev had a heap of rain this year, esp the last 2 months.

I wish you were here, Mikey. you would of been rapped.
Never seen horizontal lightning like it.
Even gave Andrea, a hug as she watched a giant flash with me

Mod Note: Thread's date range has been extended to include today.

Maybe be a rumble in the Auckland area this afternoon. But a southerly change over the inland North Island/Bay of Plenty will be the primary area for storm action this afternoon/evening. A cold atmosphere so hail with any storm that develops.

Midday 500mb chart

A cold atmosphere but no real convergence around here unless some strong heating can generate some.
The last day of this quite unsettled thundery period.

Only 9mm of moderately steady rain for us last night. Looking at ECAN site a fair few places got 3 times that inland

We had a brief hit of hail in Albany at 11:30 from this cell. More cbs off to the north west and south of us here.

About 10mins of 'gentle' hail in Havelock North around 1pm today. Small pea size.

There's a small picture of last night's lightning in this morning's Timaru Herald.
Looks rather pathetic compared to flashes we saw last night,

Intense line of thunderstorms about to hit Whakatane by the looks
2:22pm radar image