General September Weather

[David]

Gusts to 189 km/h now at Cape Turnagain

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I'm expecting that too. Might see a flash out to sea
Winds died down now and calm. Awaiting the SW to come through and see what will eventuate from then ?

Southerly never came to much here, now back to the NE. Cloud out to sea could provide something?

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

It didn't.
After a cool start, a fine sunny day eventuated.
Warm around lunchtime with today's maximum of 20.6C recorded then.
A westerly wind picked up during the afternoon.Remaining fine and clear with a few strong gusts.
Fine evening but some cloud out to the east later.

[Karliosis]

Brief shower with small hail through here around 11.05pm

[trickytiger]

Lightning and thunder out to sea from timaru currently

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Lightning and thunder out to sea from timaru currently

I noticed that might of happened. Been watchful this evening but I thought that anything that may eventuate would be out to sea instead of over land in their town forecasts. Mike was close to probably seeing something off Birdlings Flat this evening,
Forecasts for the South Island today not very good.
Should of had more districts mentioned in their 'short' forecast which remained until after 11pm,rather than saying the rest of the South Island apart from Nelson and Marlborough would be stormy with thunderstorms and hail

[mikestormchaser]

Yes thunderstorm in timaru and hail reported from a girl I know down their. Sent me a voice note, sounded reasonable size

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Horrah at last. Better late than never.
Thunderstorm with hail moving north through Geraldine with hail from 3am this morning.
Looking at radar, an active band extending from here out to the the east and eventually arriving in ChCh later.
...anyway, easing now and back to bed.

[Richard]

Woken by thunder at 4.30, only a couple, followed then by hail, lots of it, but really small sized, 1 -2 mm. Amazed my shade cloth is holding in there, only just. Wont know the rainfall total from this front till it melts, but so far 13mm and climbing

[Storm Struck]

It's good to know that storms can fire overnight even for so early in the season. But given the right set up it certainly is possible.

Heavy rain at times woke me through the night, but nothing too major.
The band of coastal showers with hail should move in soon and linger until mid afternoon. There might be a slight thunder risk in there too.
This will remain generally coastal and from Rakaia northwards.

[Storm Struck]

Just had a heavy shower with pea sized hail through here in southern Christchurch, nice combination of weather and a good All Black's performance .
Some good strong wind gusts too, I think the windy app has it up to 45kts today.

[tich]

Hailing in Akaroa. Coming over from Christchurch, there was a snow flurry at Hilltop and a dusting of white on the road coming down to Barry’s Bay. (probably hail) Some hills dusted above about 600m.

[CbFan]

Some nice beefy cells and squall lines hanging around Northland today. My mate is currently figuring out how to get his tramp down...

What goes up.JPG

[Richard]

Some nice beefy cells and squall lines hanging around Northland today. My mate is currently figuring out how to get his tramp down...What goes up.JPG

Looks like a chainsaw job getting that down.

Still got patches of hail laying around which seems to have been concentrated here, a k up the road and there was little to be seen.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Luckily no damage from the hail from the 3am thunderstorm.
It seemed to be soft and only 5 mm across from the ones I got and put in the freezer. All gone by the morning.

[Orion]

Luckily no damage from the hail from the 3am thunderstorm.
It seemed to be soft and only 5 mm across from the ones I got and put in the freezer. All gone by the morning.

My Westerfield Spy reports:

"own personal thunderstorm this morning, big lightning flashes and growls of thunder 3:15am - 4:15am, rain and soft hail from 3:45am."

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Awoken by the sound of thunder around 3am this morning.
Being doubtful about MS forecasts for Friday forecasting thunderstorms when it was fine with westerly winds and 30% humidity, and MS dropping their Timaru TS forecast at 11pm, I thought a normal change would come through overnight.
...but it didn't.
Fantastic thunderstorm with some bright flashes especially when it moved north over here. Bright arcing cloud to cloud flashes delivering some loud rumbles of thunder. 0.5mm sized hail fell from the cloud delivering a total of 4.5mm for today.
Sadly, I never heard any 'dump' thunder which is my favourite kind of thunder after a long roll. The storm moved north just before 4am, and no more thunder was heard from here although there could of been a few distant rumbles and flashes as it moved north.
....anyway a fine day eventuated with strong SW winds easing by evening. 14.5C the maximum for today.
Checking the damage the hail may of caused to blossoms and a row of tulips we have got, there was nothing, thank goodness.
EDIT: Some hail on the front steps from the thunderstorm

[Nev]

Nice to finally wake up to relatively calmer winds and sunshine after all the strong winds we've had over the last few days.

Here's MetService's peak gusts (km/h) for Auckland yesterday:
96 .. Whangaparaoa
91 .. Auckland Aero
89 .. Ardmore Aero
85 .. Whenuapai Aero

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Figures from Geraldine for September.

Max Temp - 28.1C on Wednesday the 20th
Lowest temp - minus 0.6C on Tuesday the 26th
Lowest max - 11C on Friday the 22nd
Highest min - 11C on Friday the 22nd
Rainfall - 69.9mm over 7 days.
5 frosts and 2 thunder days.

[Nev]

Despite being a typically volatile spring month, temps overall rebounded during September after an anomalously cool August, in what could possibly be NZ's warmest September on record.

Sep 2023 Climate Anomaly Maps ℅ NIWA.png

Preliminary stats for the main centres:

Code: Select all

Sep 2023 Average Temps, Rainfall, Sunshine and departures from 1991-2020 normals ℅ NIWA

Site                     T-max °C      T-min °C      T-mean °C     Rain mm      Sun hrs

Auckland, Mangere       17.5  +1.1    10.5  +0.9    14.0  +1.0    128  118%    178  112%
Tauranga Aero           17.5  +0.8    10.3  +2.0    13.9  +1.4    111  129%    
Hamilton Aero           17.5  +1.2     7.8  +1.3    12.7  +1.3    142  136%    173  117%
Wellington, Kelburn     14.5  +0.9     9.3  +1.2    11.9  +1.0    150  139%    164   99%
Christchurch Aero       16.1  +1.3     5.5  +1.6    10.8  +1.5     74  176%    177  105%
Dunedin, Musselburgh    15.0  +1.7     6.8  +1.1    10.9  +1.4     58  124%    164  111%
Greymouth Aero          15.5  +1.9     7.7  +1.0    11.6  +1.4    188   93%    135   95%

* Hamilton sunshine from Ruakura 

[David]

Warmest September in my records with a mean temp of 13.6C. Tied for wettest September with 2016, a total of 172mm locally.

[Richard]

stats for Medbury-

Rainfall - 82.4mm
max temp - 21.1deg 9th
low -0.9 deg 16th
lowest max temp 7.6deg 27th
highest low temp 13.2deg 21st

Three mornings of subzero temps
One day of thunder heard.

[Nev]

Warmest September in my records with a mean temp of 13.6C. Tied for wettest September with 2016, a total of 172mm locally.

Here's how the September 2023 main-centre mean-temps stacked up against their historical records:

Code: Select all

Site                    Rank                  Began

Tauranga Aero           Warmest               1913
Hamilton, Ruakura       Warmest               1921 
Hamilton Aero           Equal Warmest         1971
Auckland Aero           Equal Warmest         1962
Auckland, Mangere       2nd Equal Warmest     1959
Dunedin, Musselburgh    3rd Warmest           1947
Wellington, Kelburn     3rd Equal Warmest     1928
Christchurch Aero       4th Warmest           1953

[Nev]

NIWA's just released Climate Summary confirms that this September was indeed NZ's warmest September on record.
(previous record was 1988)

[Andy]

Alexandra

Rainfall - 51.2mm over 5 days
max temp - 25.1deg 20th
low -2.4 deg 26th
lowest max temp 8.6 deg 22nd
highest low temp 12.4 deg 20th

6x mornings of subzero temps
One day of thunder heard.