Greymouth Tornado

[Michael]

Listening to Newstalk ZB there was a reported tornado in the "Port area" in Greymouth around 10am The radio said there was a few iron rooves down.

[TonyT]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2541821a10,00.html

[tich]

It must be pretty stormy over there on the coast at the moment. And cold too - the midday obs show only 6-7C for Westland. From the AA report I gather that chains are essential on some South Island high country highways, including Arthur's Pass, due to snow. Over here in Christchurch it's been reasonably sunny, with more normal temperatures. But the wind's quite gusty and the cloud has increased. Actually, as I write, I believe a southerly has just hit, though no sign (yet) of any rain, but the themometer has gone down to 8C.

Ben
Christchurch

[Dean.]

The southerly passed over at 2.00pm,a cold southwest wind change and a small shower then quickly cleared from the south.
Some fresh snow on the hills,Mt Hutt recieved around 10cm from the westerly conditions this morning .
Currently temperature 5 degrees and dropping towards a good frost tonight.

[NZstorm]

The satellite photo around day break this morning showed a spectacular line of cb moving onto the west coast. Just weaker cb down that way this evening.

Some large cb in the Auckland region at the moment with lightning visible in the last hour or two out to west/Southwest. We have had a couple of heavy showers since 4pm. This satellite pic clearly shows the cb line over the NI.http://www.marine.csiro.au/~lband/weather/NZ10350.gif

Brians lightning counter has picked up 229 strikes since noon. What range is that over Brian?

[Michael]

The Wmbas chart I download shows a southerly just off the west coast north of Taranaki.
http://orbit212.wwb.noaa.gov/dataimages ... MBas70.png

[Manukau heads obs]

the range is at best 50KM
but i dont have the aerial very well placed.

it was not until it got darker that you could see the flashes
one cb i heard the tunder and saw the flash around 5pm....
alot of the strikes where cloud to cloud i would say

some very heavy and squally showers here this afternoon...near white out at times...
45 knots maximum gust (83 km/h)
30 knots maximum average, i.e a near gale....
but normal weather for this time of year....seen it alot worse...escpecialy in the 80's!

oh and great sat pic steven

[Michael]

It was black out west at 3pm and again at 5pm here I can remember June 1993 was worse than this and then July was one of the driest on record following.

[Manukau heads obs]

oh and was it a downburst or a tornado?
met service claim it was a down burst, as no funnel cloud was reproted

[Michael]

TV3 reckoned it was a downburst but on one they called it a tornado

[Manukau heads obs]

yup...tv3 interviewed a met service spokesperson (?) and he said it was downburst

[Michael]

Yes there was a met service guy there interviewed and was caused by instability in the atmosphere and saw no whirling winds

[NZstorm]

I am thinking down burst too. But we will never know for sure. A tornado was possible.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

As president and founder of NZ's premier thunderstorm organisation!


I say it was a downburst like the MetService guy said on TV3 ( I noticed he has bags under his eyes like me!!)
...or could it of been a 'mini' downburst !!!
I was looking to see if the media were going to use the term - MINI Tornado - but they didn't from what I saw.

What do others think of the term - mini-tornado - that the media like to use with regards to tornados down here in NZ and Australia?
I notice that Australians, especially ones belonging to ASWA get really uptight when the media refer to tornados as MINI
I, like the ASWA people, hate the term Mini
A tornado is a tornado whether it is a 0 or 5 in the Fujita scale.


JohnGaul
NZTS

[Manukau heads obs]

i think micro burst is the word, not mini burst, that is sometimes used for nly a small area affected

the west coast of the SI does get quite a few tornadoes, so its very possible,...especialy as people said debri was flying through the air....

[NZstorm]

A fine morning in Auckland after the odd heavy shower overnight, got woken by a couple of really heavy bursts and heard couple rumbles thunder.

Considering tornadoes are not common in NZ/Australia and they are are F0/F1, I don't blame the media calling them 'Mini', albeit the word is not used in meteorology. The big summertime supercell thunderstorms in Australia, do not produce tornadoes like their USA cousins.

Yes Brian, there is no way we will know wether this was a tornado or microburst. The Met Service would not know. I guess it is a fair educated guess to call it a microburst, but Tornadoes do not always have an obvious funnel. And as you suggest, these types of weather situations can spawn tornadoes.

That front out in the Tasman Sea could be interesting given the unstable environment.

[Michael]

As president and founder of NZ's premier thunderstorm organisation!

What do others think of the term - mini-tornado - that the media like to use with regards to tornados down here in NZ and Australia?
JohnGaul
NZTS

Its probably the fact whether you could "see it or not" if it is coming from a large cb like the ones in the states it can be seen when it reaches the ground wheres in Greymouth they probably had low cloud/rain associated at the time it occured so it was hard to determine.

[ScottyD]

I was looking to see if the media were going to use the term - MINI Tornado - but they didn't from what I saw.

What do others think of the term - mini-tornado - that the media like to use with regards to tornados down here in NZ and Australia?
I notice that Australians, especially ones belonging to ASWA get really uptight when the media refer to tornados as MINI
I, like the ASWA people, hate the term Mini
A tornado is a tornado whether it is a 0 or 5 in the Fujita scale.


JohnGaul
NZTS

I was reading Teletext this morning. Guess What! They couldn't help but use the term MINI Tornado.

I'm you, a tornado is a tornado, whether it be big or small, it's still a tornado.

[GraemeWi]

I just want them to use the 'finger of god' term.

Other good terms are:

'The suck zone'
'The cone of silence'

And if anyone knows from which movie the above terms are from, the new version on DVD is very good especially if your HT system can handle DTS

G

[Thunder]

In the PRESS today it had an artical on this incident in Greymouth and they had a nice little diagram where the tornado travelled, from the mouth of the Grey River up into the town of Greymouth somewhere. Whether it's right or wrong, whether a tornado happened at all I'm not sure, just reporting what was in the paper.

Do down bursts travel or are they an event which happens all at once and quickly in one location.

I didn't see the term mini-tornado in the PRESS but somewhere in the article they did call down bursts "dam bursts".

Cheers
Aaron Wilkinson

P.S. DTS! Lucky, I can only wish at present.

[Matthew Pearce]

Hi Aaron

A downburst is basically just a term for an intense downdraft out of the base of a thunderstorm which hits the ground and spreads outwards, resulting in very intense straight line winds for a short period of time. They will spread out from the base of the storm, losing intensity as they do so.

The easiest way to distinguish between damage associated with a downburst and that from a tornado is to look at the pattern of damage. Trees that are felled by the damage are the easiest to use. If all the trees are down pointing in one direction then chances are it was a downburst because these produce winds all in one straight line. If the damage shows signs of pointing in opposite directions in a small distance, then there is much more likelihood of it being caused by a tornado.

Matt

[Thunder]

Thanks Matt. That way you described of distinguishing between the two (tornado or downburst) is a great way of putting it.

Cheers
Aaron Wilkinson

[tich]

It must've been a thirsty tornado (assuming it was one). According the newspaper map of its path, it travelled directly up the river from the sea until it reached a fork, then it decided to hit the land and do some damage. I imagine anything in its path getting a severe water blasting as well as being ripped apart by its force.