North Island thunderstorm outbreak – flash flooding, hail risks
26/01/2018 5:38am
UPDATED 6:38pm — BREAKING NEWS — As forecast daytime heating plus humidity is leading to severe thunderstorms with a rapid outbreak currently moving across Bay of Plenty and Central Plateau.
WeatherWatch.co.nz says the downpours are dramatically developing and people should be indoors if they can hear thunder.
As of 6:30pm these storms were around Rotorua and Te Puke and tracking west to north west.
“This is very dangerous weather with cloud to ground lightning strikes and torrential downpours with hail which could lead to localised flash flooding” says head forecaster Philip Duncan.
Heavy downpours will pop up through inland areas of both islands over the next couple more days and some will drift to coastlines or more popular places.
There are a few thunderstorms in the upper South Island mountains well inland too right now.
WeatherWatch.co.nz says the storms and downpours are peaking now and will ease this evening, most likely around sunset and afterwards.
Track the thunderstorms here live
– 6:30pm tax funded rain radar.
– WeatherWatch.co.nz
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remco remmelink on 26/01/2018 7:42am
Very dangerous weather but still no proper lightning detector…..
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WW Forecast Team on 26/01/2018 8:02am
Neither of the Government owned forecasters, NIWA or MetService, will openly share their lightning data. They are the two forecasters you fund with your taxes and we as NZers 100% own. So WeatherWatch is now working with IBM and The Weather Company and our plan is to get better displays for NZ – the issue is the more detailed you get the less value it is for them to sell to the big businesses that need it. I’m hoping we can find a middle ground.
Wish us luck – we hope to have a decision in the next month.
Cheers
WW
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