Thunderstorms hail, most parts of NZ New Years

[carrot]

Getting a few flashes of lightning

[darcyplumb]

And hail by the sound of that. 11.8°C and heavy rain with it.

That thunder was incredible. So loud, big cracking noises! The rain was crazy too. I will check my gauge in the morning but I think we would have got a few mm in a very short time.

[mikestormchaser]

Very good chase in the end, traveled with Steve and aaron down to south Canterbury where we encountered a big storm inland from Ealing. The storm put out a big bolt right overhead of us and we were actually under some powerlines at the time and heard a big crackle/ zip. We quickly ran to the car.. Once that died we sat around and then got the ashburton storm at 1am this morning followed by managing to snap a shot of lightning with the rakaia salmon.

[Storm Struck]

It was quite an enjoyable night hearing the big fireworks from Hagley around midnight, and then the lightning to the north from here with some bolts lighting up the CB well.

One thing that did lack yesterday to really get storms moving quicker and severe, was a stronger surface southerly.

Today shows the destabilisation with the surface NE and upper level SW, cumulus humulus clouds billowing up.