NZ Weather Forum

I'm thinking somewhere storms are a good possibility coming up this weekend, maybe I'm jumping the gun. As Steven W said a possible trough over Auckland so be on the lookout!

As for today, calm (ever so slight NE) - 19 degrees and climbing and a 11 degree dewpoint!! Pitty it isn't going to do anything Upper 500mb temps I'd say would be at -19 to -20, so it would have to be warmer down here for anything to happen I guess (bit of a cap at 800mb). By then the NW would've come through and accordingly the dewpoint would've dropped and we'll have nothing. A southerly would do really nicely right now.

Just checked Steven G's site in Templeton and it looks as if the NW has taken over, no storms today.

Ummm...have I said the right stuff there people? Please tell me where I'm wrong..

You would absolutley love it here today Micheal, very warm and peacfull with sun. 11am reading at the airport still shows slight NE but I don't think for long and 21 C, 11 C dewpoint. Steven G's station shows 24C! A very nice day.

Yes I agree with you Aaron, Storms somewhere in NZ this weekend.

There is a small chance in the East of the SouthIsland on Sat however the Seabreezes need to be active so probably a month early there.
Your Warm NW air is spent-dead air as far as heavy showers go.

The hot Air over East Australia will arrive here in the North as high dew point air so there is a chance over the North Island of Thunderstorms with the Front on Sunday and or Afternoon build ups in the Trough with any sunshine.
Will have to wait and see.

Yes I agree with you Aaron, Storms somewhere in NZ this weekend.

There is a small chance in the East of the SouthIsland on Sat however the Seabreezes need to be active so probably a month early there.

Latest severe weather outlook suggests possible heavy rain in central and eastern North Island on Sunday, as well as very cold southerlies over South Island, with possibly snow to low levels. With a trough developing on a cold front, anything could happen.

you can view a 7 day isobar model at:-

http://grads.iges.org/pix/aus.slp.html

which suggests the same thing.

Damn good website actually, in fact you should also look at

http://www.surf.co.nz and click on the weather link.

There's some cool tidbits in there

Yes you will be right Auckland again will get the crap weather

Buggar, sh*t, buggar...

I was just inside playing Netball (yes, you can stop the jokes right there boys) and missed a storm.

My partner described four flashes, the last being a bolt across Mt cargill (probably to ground) and more rumbles. I heard one clap, loud and long and witnessed heavy drops on the skylights of the building I was in.

Strangely the Lightning Detector recorded nothing near the city at the time of around 6.10pm.

Fujita Phil wrote:Buggar, sh*t, buggar...

I was just inside playing Netball (yes, you can stop the jokes right there boys) and missed a storm.

My partner described four flashes, the last being a bolt across Mt cargill (probably to ground) and more rumbles. I heard one clap, loud and long and witnessed heavy drops on the skylights of the building I was in.

Strangely the Lightning Detector recorded nothing near the city at the time of around 6.10pm.

....immmm
Jeff's , I mean Steven Graham's lightning tracker has a couple of flashes off the Otago coast, plus the Rakaia Rain radar has cloud moving away to the Ne off the Otago Peninusula, which would of been a result of the thunder you heard.
Shame it won't make it's way northward to Christchurch
the baromoter is low enough thou'
The wind has dropped away here now
...another day tomorrow of westerly winds

JohnGaul
NZTS

Hey Phil!! If you were inland just a little you would've had a rip roaring time!, provided you didn't have other activities on at the time. Have a look!!

Looks as if all the conditions were there like they were here in Chch earlier in the day. The front that brushed the coast was the trigger that made things go up! The land was warm enough so it went off. Good stuff. Like I said on the first post of this thread, if we had a southerly...oh by cricky...

As John said the lightning tracker only picked up four strikes off the coast. Probably from the bigger storms shown on this sat pic from 6:26.

Aww... first strikes of the season and I missed it. I just get home and meet my smiling partner who keeps saying "it's was a great storm (giggle), oh sorry honey... but it was a great storm (giggle).

Oh well, next time...

Interesting to see storms in the Dunedin area yesterday Evening.

Onshore winds are usually needed for storms to develop over the land down there so the high temps yesterday must have pulled moist sea air on to coastal parts.

Winds are currently ENE here in town with it reading SW at templeton and the airport, I also see a little bit of Cu out there, interesting. Dewpoint at 7C though. 24C temp which is nice.

Maybe a convergence line is developing to the North of the city on land and out at sea, just went for a walk and saw this. Still questionable as to whats going to happen.

Yes, thunder/hail looks likely for eastern South Island Saturday.

Something possible over the North Island on Sunday with that trough.

Hopefully!!

Just looked offshore and see some altocumulus castellanus, hopefully a sign of things to come...

I see you've been logging on Deano, I saw what looked like cb's on the weatherzone sat pics around Darwin the other day. Storm season looks to of started for you or is extremely close!

Well not a storm but I saw my first Sundog, (parhelia, mock suns) What ever you want to call them!!! And it was a beauty!! going by that images I have found on the net!!

It was at about 7:30 this morning!!

Just wondering how would one take a photo of one with a slr camera?? ie. what filter would be good?

Big storm off the West Coast this morning!! Also have had a strike off the coast of Timaru!

Thought I'd move it back to here.

So yes, SI - Saturday, NI - Sunday sounds good. I was thinking the southerly wouldn't do us any good on Sunday, I'm glad you guy's agree.

I can invision the storm chasing stamped leaving from Brians this Sunday as the storms come. What a sight it will be.......

Have you got any direct link to those two models Tony? The LAPs one for those totals (what does that mean totals that is? The rainfall?) and the GFS one for CAPE?

Thanks.

Currently we have thunder to the NW. A rumble each other minute or so on average.

I hope it heads this way. We have had rain after a mildish day. Temp currently 9.2C

Fujita Phil wrote:Currently we have thunder to the NW. A rumble each other minute or so on average.

I hope it heads this way. We have had rain after a mildish day. Temp currently 9.2C

I wouldnt hope it heads this way, I would be heading to it!!!

See theres rain again for us tomorrow ,mild night here 14c however

Aaron J Wilkinson wrote:Have you got any direct link to those two models Tony? The LAPs one for those totals (what does that mean totals that is? The rainfall?) and the GFS one for CAPE?

Thanks.

You can see the LAPS model output at http://www.bom.gov.au/nmoc/NWP.shtml

The links for the total totals maps are about half way down the page. You could try googling "total totals" to find out how it is calculated - its an empirical calculation of instability based on (I think) 850,700 and 500Hpa temps and dewpoints. It has nothing to do with rainfall.

For all GFS output I use the READY system at http://www.arl.noaa.gov/ready/cmet.html Just put nzch in the ICAO/WMO location box, choose meteogram or interactive map, pick your time period and choose the parameters you want (CAPE is one of them, lifted index is another useful one for asessing possible convection). I find the whole READY system incredibly useful, not just for generating forecast data in easy to view ways but also to look at archived data - ie if you get a storm and you want to check out what the CAPE or lifted index was, then check out the archived info.

03 Stormchaser wrote:I wouldnt hope it heads this way, I would be heading to it!!!

No, it made it to me but had fizzled out by the time it was overhead (lightning that is). Only one more thunder clap but it came along with hail, heavy rain, rainbows and wind gusts.

No, it made it to me but had fizzled out by the time it was overhead (lightning that is). Only one more thunder clap but it came along with hail, heavy rain, rainbows and wind gusts.

Invercargill got hammered by heavy hail sometime today, according to TV1 Weather. Still mild and dry (with high cloud) in Chch - latest radar shows some light rain off the North Canterbury coast.

Well we have got clear skies but how long will it last!! There is a band of clear sky which is what we need too create some heat, wind is already alite southerly

Invercargill sounding looks cold and potentially unstable. The 500mb temperature is a nice chilly -29C. But as you alerted to in an earlier post Stormchaser03, the high cloud is likely to kill the day.

Another thunderstorm in east Otago yesterday . Didn't I say East Otago can be a hot spot for summer storms. They are far enough south to be into that cold upper air that regularly flicks through southern NZ but also east enough to get a bit of fine weather/surface heating. And the Met Service rarely can predict them. I guess it’s a mesoscale environment down there with very localised CAPE.

A mild 16C morning in Auckland with high cloud.