NZ Weather Forum

The hill country of East Otago can have a lot of Thundery weather but it usually starts in November and dies out about Xmas. Sea Breezes are nearly always an important ingredient for Storms to develop down there.

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

No more than partly cloudy in Chch so far, but the southerly is now fresh. 7AM radar shows precip on the Kaikoura Coast.

tich wrote:

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

No more than partly cloudy in Chch so far, but the southerly is now fresh. 7AM radar shows precip on the Kaikoura Coast.

One or two cumulusses around at the moment in a reasonably unstable looking sky
The sun has popped through on the odd occasion
I will maintain my 2 for the moment as I noticed the cloud is coming in from a more ESE to East direction against the surface SW

JohnGaul
NZTS

Clouding up nicely now, maybe the NE convergence coming in


JohnGaul
NZTS

Cloudy this afternoon with some brief showers, but nothing heavy in the central city.

Here its still dry with a strong gust NW and 19c The rains not far away now

Rain now has arrived unfortunately

A weak convergence did go through with some threatoning clouds around 3pm. My father reported it raining quite heavily in Halswell and my wifewho was going to go for a ride on her horse, changed her mind when it began to rain quite steadily in Prebbleton.
There was nothing here except for a few spits but now light rain is falling.
It was just in time too as I had just finished mowing my lawns.
There was a very light NE here from 1pm but now that wind is light and variant, with a Wsw tendancy. Looks like another convergence coming over
No sfrecics recorded and nothing on Steven's lightning detector.
I think it was too cloudy today to set anything off.
Until this new convergence passes over, I will maintain my 2


JohnGaul
NZTS

03Storm and me went and about and managed to get a Funnel Cloud would you believe it!!! Near Rangiora!! At around noon.!!! When we first spotted it it was about 2/3 of the way to the ground but it didn't manage to make it.

To much talk about now, more details later!!!

I saw those clouds Aaron, looked to be rapidly developing bubbly Cus, never made it to CB but did go up quite fast then seemed to just slowly flatten out. That was about the time the surface wind went light NE from the earlier SW (as John remarked also). As we predicted yesterday, there was plenty of instability up there today, just not enough oomph from anything to make a storm.

Thats two funnel clouds caught on film in the last few weeks, both from large CUs but not CBs. Very interesting.

I sent a photo to one news so it could be on the weather segment tonight.

03Storm also got video footage of it so that's good but were not sending that to the news, to late now.

May more storms follow!!!

Nice picture Aaron - I'll have to start watching out for these funnel clouds!

Cheers,

G

Just came back from shopping.
The other convergence did come over but now it has seemed to of cleared a wee bit. Ne a bit more significant and a bit cooler than the previous lighter one.
2 convergences in one day, amazing
Shame nothing to trigger it off
Congrats on your funnel shot Aaron.
From here the cloud did look swerly and manacing enough but nothing to envoke me off any interest to investigate further
I could see the 'swaiths' in the higher cloud, possible hail forms but reducing to rain form on hitting the surface like what was out at Halswall/Prebbleton
....anyway on a brighter note, MetService have thunderstorms predicted for Tuesday for South Islanders, North Islanders for Wednesday as a result of an upper level trough moving over the country
..cant wait

JohnGaul
NZTS

Should be in time for Labour weekend

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:....anyway on a brighter note, MetService have thunderstorms predicted for Tuesday for South Islanders, North Islanders for Wednesday as a result of an upper level trough moving over the country
..cant wait

JohnGaul
NZTS

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:....anyway on a brighter note, MetService have thunderstorms predicted for Tuesday for South Islanders, North Islanders for Wednesday as a result of an upper level trough moving over the country
..cant wait

JohnGaul
NZTS

Have they John?? as far as I can tell they have a high over us!!

03 Stormchaser wrote:

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:....anyway on a brighter note, MetService have thunderstorms predicted for Tuesday for South Islanders, North Islanders for Wednesday as a result of an upper level trough moving over the country
..cant wait

JohnGaul
NZTS

Have they John?? as far as I can tell they have a high over us!!

Yeah, but then these upper levels can spring in few surprises now and then

,,,by the way the weather on TV was a load of rubbish. Karen said that the cold southerly had taken hold of Christchurch.
How come it is easterly outside?
..we will probably get a fine day tommorow with it getting to about 14C


JohnGaul
NZTS

03 Stormchaser wrote:

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:....anyway on a brighter note, MetService have thunderstorms predicted for Tuesday for South Islanders, North Islanders for Wednesday as a result of an upper level trough moving over the country
..cant wait

JohnGaul
NZTS

Have they John?? as far as I can tell they have a high over us!!

Yeah, but then these upper levels can spring in few surprises now and then

,,,by the way the weather on TV was a load of rubbish. Karen said that the cold southerly had taken hold of Christchurch.
How come it is easterly outside?
..we will probably get a fine day tommorow with it getting to about 14C


JohnGaul
NZTS

Well done Aaron and a great photo to.

Looks like cool temps have robed you of a Thunderstorm day down there.

hey, good stuff guys
as NZ storm says, funnels clouds are probably more commed that people think....you just have to be at the right place at the right time....i remember seeing one of the coast here one day from a towering CB cloud...no anvil head....and on the water surface was a dark circle.....i.e there was rotating winds even at the surface.,..even though the funnel cloud only came down a 3rd of the way..../i.e even this one you guys observerd, at the surface, there could easily be some rotating winds me thinks

Just too cloudy around here today for any action, no time to heat up. It looked to want to clear late morning but quickly thickened up again before rain mid-afternoon.

Another period of rain this evening in Chch, coming down quite heavily during the 2nd half of the Canty-BOP NPC game. (not easy to keep control of the ball in such conditions) Cleared soon after the end of the game, and now only partly cloudy.

Right, where do we start. Probably "at the very beggining, a very good place to start". Sorry about that. The hills (plains really) were alive with the sound of FC, lol. Although this one made no sound which was interesting and we got pretty close to it.

03Storm and me first went to Victoria Park on top of the Port Hills to see what was happening. We stayed there for about 1/2 an hour and saw small little clouds build into good Cu congestus to the NNE out over what looked like the Waimak river mouth. Other Cu was developing to the east and behind us but to us it didn't seem to have as much potential as the clouds to the north. We decided to leave and headed towards the NNE. We got to an area just south of the Waimak main Rd bridge and turned right down a road called Dickies Rd and drove down it a bit but not too far. We sat for a bit and photographed / videoed the dark bases etc and then decided what to do. No lightning was happening and only sporadic drops of large rain was falling. We thought it would be a good bet to stay on the north side of the Waimak river so we drove back down Dickies Rd and then onto the highway. When over the bridge we took a left down a Rd called Tram Rd, when just passed Clarkville guess what we saw!!! Stephen (03Storm) shouted, "Funnel Cloud!!" It must've just come down but we didn't see it as it came down. We pulled over immediately and jumped a padock fence to video and photograph the funnel. It's the first one him and me have ever scene!! So, a first for us today! We couldn't believe it, it was only about 500m away (maybe less). Stephen recommended we go after it but I was a little weary as I thought it would dissapear soon thinking that these NZ events are quite short lasting. I thought, "What the hey" and we went after it. We then drove to within about 150m from it but it had gone into the cloud a bit more but it was fatter looking. We then followed it more and got right underneath the spiraling cloud mass above us, no funnel was comming down at this point though. When it got about 100m from us the funnel came back again and we photographed and videoed it. It never touched the ground but it was cool to watch! Initially when it came down it was about 2/3 of the way to the ground but went up a bit by the time we got out of the car to photograph it. The spinning base of the cloud persisted for about 1/2 an hour or maybe slightly longer which is quite amazing!, the funnel came in and out at times but when it went in it was never for that long, it was out of the cloud most of the time. Heavy rain and then hail (5-6mm in diameter) began to fall and that's when the funnel dissapeared. The hail was falling down quite hard and was cool. I think I may have seen a flash during this period but apart from that we never saw any lightning which was unfortunate but the funnel cloud sure made up for that! We then drove out of the heavy rain and hail to other interesting looking bases to the west which ended up producing only rain. When we got back to my place a convergence line (the 2nd as John mentioned for the day) was over Chch with some ok looking Cu that went up high but it unfortunately died down. About an hour ago I had some heavy rain but now it's calm.

So that's the day! The rotating base when it went just infront of us was great to watch. You could see winds / cloud coming in from the South on the west side of it and then on our side you could see the winds coming in from the North spiriling into a circle where the funnel was. Call me silly but it looked like a mini supercell. I know, I know it's likely not but grrr! quite cool.

Thanks for the comments guys re the photo. I'll put up a report on my site tomorrow with more photo's etc where you'll see the clear slots of rotation etc. The photo's don't look as good as what we saw with our own eyes but the photo's show some interesting features. I'm yet to see the video footage though as Stephen hadn't brought the cables to connect it to the TV when at my place. It will be interesting to watch when I do!

We went west further and out of the rain and hail etc to look at other interesting bases but nothing more happened and then the rain set in. Stephen had to pick up something form his brothers in Oxford which we were close to at the time belive it or not. We then went home via the waimak gorge bridge and then back down the old west coast Rd to Chch.

Yes Brian. As Steven W noted, these occurances probably occur quite often. Dispertion wise at the moment you'd have to say most of those will be up north

Now the bad news. 250km done!!! It was worth it.

Stephen, I found what John was referring to. When you look at the metservice website on the severe weather outlook page it says this:

Prospects of severe weather from Tuesday to Thursday are minimal at this stage. An anticyclone should lurk over the Tasman Sea while a west to southwest flow affects New Zealand. The passage of an upper level trough may induce thunderstorm activity over the South Island on Tuesday and the North Island on Wednesday.

One news didn't use the photo, oh well.

Excellent photo Aaron. Goes to show, if you get out, you can spot some interesting weather. Well done.

As Steven W noted, these occurances probably occur quite often. Dispertion wise at the moment you'd have to say most of those will be up north

I think most of the funnel occurances in NZ are coastal, caused by convection off a milder sea. A lesser amount over land. I have suggested over 100 occurances a year but I suspect there would be considerably more than that. Most of them are non-severe and have little affect on the surface.

Thanks Steven! Hope I can get another one at some point this season. As Brian notes storms look to be heading for Auckland or that area so maybe as the meeting thing has finished storms will arrive and it'll be time to chase!

My Storms for this weekend thread has turned out to be quite correct in a way.

The sun is coming out at times here and the southerly quater winds aren't that strong at all. Only 10 degrees though so doubt anything. Cumulus looks ok thought but that's all it'll be probably.

Sorry, the report will be up tomorrow night on my site. I was getting mixed up with my days and thought I'd be off to work today. The connection at work is faster and allows me to upload the info and pictures alot easier. I'm on the family computer at home and other's have to use it to so unfortunatly can't be on it all day. No worries, tomorrow it be up.

Just on again. I noticed on the metstrikeweb thing lightning strikes just off the coast from me and then continuing east of B'sP. I think this would've been from a Cb that passed over top of us in the early hours of this morning (it would've been dark). Considering it was dark at the time one lightning strike doesn't worry me too much.

Steven G. Do you have a map of this mornings lightning strikes off B'sP at all? A zoomed in view if at all possible? Not for my site, just woundering how close things got. No worries if not.