A band of thunderstorms that suddenly formed near the Waitakere Ranges early this evening is now clearing north east Auckland and heading out into the Hauraki Gulf. The band of torrential showers is moving very slowly and contains cloud to ground lightning. These thunderstorms are not part of secondary band still predicted to move in later this evening. Due to the slow nature of the storms localised surface and flash flooding is quite possible.
More thunderstorms are heading towards the North Island tonight after a busy day across our skies.
11,000 lightning strikes have been detected over and around the North Island in the past 18 hours and while most thunderstorms have eased more are predicted to move in tonight.
Image: Thunderstorms over the Far North this afternoon – CHDAVIS-NZ
Current Thunderstorms:
Around Great Barrier Island, north eastern Coromandel Peninsula and potential King Country/National Park.
WeatherWatch.co.nz predicts the next band will arrive in Taranaki around 6:30pm with the torrential showers/thunderstorms moving in to Northland, Auckland, Waikato later this evening.
Tomorrow afternoon the centre of the low will move across the lower/central North Island meaning more heavy showers in the west and north but conditions will ease quickly behind the low on Thursday.
Check back for further updates this evening – and please post comments on weather conditions where you are!
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Taryn on 29/09/2009 7:04am
Amazing fork lightning over the Hauraki Gulf at the moment. Watching from Campbells Bay and forks are going right across the sky. It’s pretty spectacular and thunder has been going on for about an hour here.
Is this the second band reaching us now or has that still not arrived yet?
Also like to say you guys are usually the most reliable for weather forecasts and think you do a great job.
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Sandy on 29/09/2009 7:00am
What a cool night to be a weather watcher!!!! just took the kids out for a drive to the shops and had an array of weather. we drove from Orewa to Silverdale and was very surprised to find the road dry in Orewa and flooded 500m further up. on our return nothing had changed Orewa was still dry. I saw what could have been a tornado cell but nothing came of it that I could see and the lightning was soooo cool against the dark clouds. finially on our way home we were hit by the biggest hail stones I have seen here in auckland, some easily 10 – 15mm. I have to say that scared me a bit as was concerned about the window breaking, but that only lasted about 30 seconds and then turned to rain. as I am typing the rain and the hail and the lightning is having a party, my dog is huddled at my feet and the kids are staring out the window. We are having a ball!!! Roll on more of these tonight
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Claire on 29/09/2009 6:54am
Saw the storm forming to the north-northwest as I was driving in Glenfield looking towards Greenhithe around 6.00pm. Had thunder by 6.30pm but most was pretty far away. Torrential rain by 7.00pm with a little hail and louder thunder. Now much calmer at 8.00pm but can still hear thunder retreating. There’s a lot of it, but very quiet now.
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Andrew on 29/09/2009 6:14am
Hi huge thunderstorm and 10mm of rain fell in just 10 mins here in Northcote….. 7pm -7.10pm…..
If more Thunderstorms are heading our way tonight should be fun…..
Andrew
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Mel on 29/09/2009 5:33am
Huge hail & thunderstorm just passed through Helensville – still have lightning & thunder but rain has eased
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Daniel E on 29/09/2009 5:22am
I saw a funny looking cloud at the base of the big cloud over west AKL around 6:15 (looking west from Mt Eden) and once I got the binocs out, I saw the bottom part of it was moving all over the place. The cloud then started to break apart a few minutes later. Didn’t seem to be a strong one and it didn’t touch the ground but a VERY cool sight. 1 minute later, I see a brilliant bolt of forked lightining hit the ground in west AKL. Awesome 🙂
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