Quiet weather for all

The weather has been a lot quieter over the past few days. Nothing big and dramatic to talk about so I'll keep today's blog a little lighter. (The one I posted Tuesday was long enough).

Tauranga floods

We've got a big high in the Tasman Sea which is doing its best at pushing the rain clouds away - but failed to stop a dramatic downpour in Tauranga on Tuesday. To use a cringe pun I was 'flooded' with emails and calls from people wanting to know why the forecast was wrong. Even had Classic Hits BOP on the phone demanding an answer...(I know BK so that's ok!) Unfortunately this band of rain and showers was extremely narrow...only about as wide as Tauranga and Mt Maunganui give or take a few kilometres. This narrow band of rain literally stalled and was fed by moisture from the Pacific Ocean all day. This narrow band of rain didn't ease up and dumped almost 100mm over the past 24 hours. This lead to widespread surface flooding the other day. If there had been a slightly stronger breeze the forecast would've been bang on - a few heavy showers...but that wasn't the case.

Meteors

On Sunday night I was watching TV in bed at about 10:30pm...lights were on, TV was bright...and yet something caught my eye out the window. I turned and thought it was a plane's landing lights but then realised it was a meteor. A colleague of mine also saw it...she was hanging out washing at 10:30pm (we're funny creatures us humans)...and she had never seen anything like it.

I've seen many shooting stars in my life time but I've never seen anything quite like this...it left me grinning for about 20 minutes it was so mesmerising. The light was bright white/green and streaked from east to west in the north west sky. It lasted for about 4 seconds...a long time when you count out loud and watch it. We've had quite a few eyewitness reports lately.

If you've seen any meteors let us know - post a comment below, tell us where you were and what it looked like

Strange Photo

Someone sent in a photo which looks like a cloud that's had a meteor strike through it - it is, in fact, a cloud that's had a large jet fly through it. I've seen one of these being made by a 747 and it was quite an unreal site! I don't know why but your first instinct is to think 'that can't be possible".

Cricket

Will the rain curse continue for cricket fans in Hamilton this week? I predicted partly cloudy skies yesterday with only a slight risk of a shower - and even then I thought that would be too far east. That was the case too, but today is a little more complicated. Could be a shower today - nothing too widespread but perhaps something to slow down play. At this stage Thursday looks to be the highest risk day for the cricket. I'm closely monitoring the rain clouds so if you want to read my up to date Hamilton forecasts click here and the Herald's Hamilton weather page is here.