Photos from 17th Oct Cb over West Auckland

[C-Nimbus]

Dunno if these photos should go on here or on the Daily Photos section, but oh well.

I observed increasing Cu activity thru the later part of the day. The upper air seemed to become increasingly unstagle as cloud tops became puffier and higher. Cloud bases also reduced from about 1500m to 1000m

At about 5:30 I observed Altocumulus floccus (I think) which indicated to me that something more serious was about to happen. Within about 15mins the sky had darken to the North and was heading our way. I saw and heard a C-C strike, then another, then another!. So I went up to the hill to take the final photos . A couple more audible cracks could be heard but then it seemed to die off.

The 7pm radar suggested more activity to the north, esp around wellsford and warkworth way.

Hope you enjoy the photos.

[C-Nimbus]

I exceeded my 3 attachment limit so heres sum more.

in no particular order!

[C-Nimbus]

.........but wait, theres still more.

Thats right!, not only do you get the first 6, you also get, for no extra charge, more photos valued at bugger all!

[Thunder]

Cool, thanks c-nimbus! That second to last photo looks like one of the Cb's Brain also photographed from where he was.

[spwill]

Thanks for the photos C- Nimbus.
Unfortunately the instability came in very late yesterday, I had hoped for much more in the way of storms than we got. Yesterdays Dew Point of around 9c was quite low for Auckland, the higher the dewpoint the better for storm development . You really want dewpoints of 14c or higher.

[Manukau heads obs]

yup, the same CB
(that gave hail and 12mm of rain in a short duration to the heads here

it was just after you guys left, spwill, that it all suddenly fired up....just as I thought it would!

good to see the cb's from a different angle than we could see them from here