A little over a week ago I wrote about Christchurch and its sweltering heat with temperatures reaching the 40 degree mark. But today it seems christchurch has turned another leaf with one of the most wild and powerful hail storm I have ever seen in this country. It was absolutely amazing to say the least. During the morning I was enjoying reading my book in the sun over in Governers Bay and at 10am I could start to hear the continuous thunder over the hills.
In the early afternoon I had to go out down to South Canterbury to visit some friends which was a disaster. I drove right into the storm at probably what was its peak. The hail stones probably the size of 50c pieces in diameter were pounding the windscreen and I was very sure that it was hard enough to break the glass or dent the metal so I sought shelter in the BP gas station in Rolleston while filling up and shocked at the power of how the water and hail was coming down.
After about 10 minutes the weather had cleared but it was evident at how powerful the storm was by the amount of water running down the roads. Continuing south it was amazing how thick the hail was. It looked like what the middle of winter would look like. In places the hail was at least 30cm thick on the ground and complete while out. Espessialy around Burnham.
Further down in Rakaia my car stopped. Typical BMW’s. The worst thing was it would start again. My only guess is that the extremely heavy and powerful rain and hail has got into the electrics somewhere and shorted something. The diagnostic is yet to be made. 
From reports that I have been hearing in our Harcourts office this morning is that the storm was relatively isolated to the western and southern sides of the city People could see the lightning from the city but didnt experience the torential downpours. Areas in Lower Cashmare and around there were very badly hit by heavy rain with one of our staff reporting that they had been completely flooded out and that hail stones went through her roof. It will be interesting to hear what the total scale of damage has been. Further south when I was parked at the fuel station there were a number of cars with shattered windscreens and a few minutes before I got there the place was stuck by lightning.
When I get the camera out of my car I will upload a few photos here so you can see the extent of the hail from the service station and when I continued to drive. To say the least the weather was a freak of nature most probaly caused by convection updrafts but what ever it was it left its mark over southern Christchurch and Canterbury.
To see an article in the press click this link.
January 18 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Just as we all go back to work the weather turns on some spectacular temperatures. Yesterday the temperatures reached in the mid to high 30’s but today Christchurch peaked 40 Degrees C in parts. Officially according to the metservice the max temp was 37.4 . Today’s maximum temperature of 40 Degrees C almost blew the old record out of the water which was 41.8 °C at: 14:39 on: 19 Feb 1973 some 35 years ago.
The metservice are predicting that this years summer will be hotter and drier than usual and will most likely last until mid March.
So what do you do in this heat?
January 08 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wow maybe the winter weather has slowed everyone down. Only 3 blogs since my last blog 5 days ago. What’s going on? I know for the market in New Plymouth it was a very slow week. And for my open homes during the weekend I had no one through at all. And I even noticed the amount of open homes had reduced by 40%. Something for me to look into.
But in all honestly we have just experienced our first cold snap and wintery blast of the year. And by all accounts looking at the sea temperatures and trade wind patterns I think we are in for another 2 or 3 weeks of similar patterns. But anyway the cold snap has dried us all up and huddled us into bed.
Our New Plymouth office experienced 30 sales in the first 3 weeks of June and bugger all in the last week. I noticed I had less than half the email traffic I usually get last week and phone calls were down. It was just a very boring week. And to top it off having no one at any of my open homes during the weekend. What a browner for both me and the Vendors.
But it’s not just us in Real Estate that were hit last week. I was talking to a friend of mine today who owns a bar and he said his takings were down 60% on the week before alone. Now that is bad. And another friend of mine in a retail shop said she was board all week because of no one out shopping. And I look at our blog site. 10 blogs in the week 3 of them mine!
Is this the time of year everyone goes on holiday and does nothing or is everyone sick or is it just that everyone is cold and get lethargic and doesn’t want to do anything. Whatever it is it’s definitely happening right now. I must say out of all honesty it’s been very hard to get out of bed in the mornings. Very cold.
I dear hope that there becomes more activity in the market soon. It’s getting a tad boring, especially doing open homes for 3 hours and seeing no one.
Oh and just as a side note I need more comments. I deleted a whole chunk of your comments by mistake. Was trying to get rid of the spam. But instead the spam stayed and your comments disappeared. Sorry…..
June 30 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Wow! The cold weather has come and hit us right in the butt. Here in Taranaki over the last few days have had in excess of 70mm of rain and some bitter cold temperatures. I was out driving around last night when a massive hail storm hit. It was amazing to see my temperature reading on my car plummet from 6 degrees to 3 degrees in a matter of seconds. The hail was awesome. I haven’t seen a lot of hail in my short life so for me it was the biggest hail storm I have ever seen. The road was almost like a white out.
My brother called me at 9am yesterday morning from Dunedin where he is attending university. He was telling me that it was snowing, and was really excited. The snow fall that Mt Taranaki has experienced is apparently the lowest recorded snowfall for over 4 years. So the wintery blast definitely had a kick to it. My mother who lives in Westport was telling me just before that they have had rain for 3 days solid and that the whole area is like a swamp with so much water all over. Let’s just hope that some of this is reaching our hydro lakes so that I can turn my heater on. LOL.
Anyway the wintery blast isn’t over yet. I was just looking at the weather forecast and the maps to see where all this cold air is coming from. And with my knowledge of navigation and weather is telling me that the temperature gauges are going to plummet further. In Taranaki I expect that we will be hit by more and probably more unsettled weather at like 2 or 3pm this afternoon and the showers after the rain band which I think will last for the next 2 days. But it will gradually get better from Thursday morning. But the whole country looks like it is in for a blast from the Polar Regions tonight. My poor mum.
This is what the weather situation looked like at 6am NZST (this morning) Very very ugly!!! You can see what hit us over the the last few days and whats about to hit us, which has far colder air than the previous fronts.
The interesting thing that I have encountered is the activity of people when it got cold. This week I have had hardly any enquiry, hardly any contact with people at all. The weather just seems to turn people off and puts us into hibernation. Although this month has been quite buoyant with selling a house a day this week has been rather slow.
But in light of this cold weather and this time of year there is always some good news. The first is I can probably go snowboarding. YAY for me. If anyone wants to come I’m looking at going in two weeks time. But on a more positive note Saturday was the winter solstice (the shortest day). So from here on in the days are just going to get longer and warmer. Oh and before we know it, it’s going to be CHRISTMASS.
Well everyone rug up and keep warm over the next few days. It could be a wild ride.
June 25 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
