Canterbury, New Zealand Tornadoes x2

[Steve Burrows]

Went out for a chase on Sunday Afternoon the 23rd Feb 2014 and managed to bag two tornadoes.

The first one near the town of Leeston about 40km south of Christchurch at about 4:30pm. This caused mostly only damage to trees and possibly very minor damage to roofing.

Watch video >

The second near Amberley, about 50km north of Christchurch. This second twister caused severe damage too one dwelling and caused minor damage to another 20. Both Tornadoes were in rural locations.
http://youtu.be/PM9n9lxspcI

These are the 2nd and 3rd tornadoes I've caught chasing in Canterbury of the last 10 years. Although we have had another waterspout that made landfall that hit our car toward the end of last year. We have posted a few submitted photos and videos here: https://www.facebook.com/nzstormchasers

Adjusted sounding as GFS under forecasts the NE Wind / Moisture, adjst made for dp/ CAPE (Thanks to Steven Williams for this)
http://s27.postimg.org/ehdg3flwj/sounding.png

This would be the first time (too my knowledge) that a chaser has bagged two tornadoes in a day in NZ!

 

[Stephen Levine]

Thank you for sharing your videos! Too bad about all the trees in the 2nd chase. That would be very frustrating for me.
Am I correct that tornadoes are extremely rare in N.Z. ?

 

[Steve Burrows]

Comparing it to the US, then yes very rare. In ten years of chasing here I've seen 3 and only missed out on one or two with 200km of my home town. Up the west coast of both Islands they are more common with damaging waterspouts coming ashore. Auckland in recent years has also seen a couple of deadly tornadoes.

Chasing and actually bagging a tornado doesnt happen often anywhere in the country, but this is due to there only being a handful of true chasers here. Facebook / social media has increased the exposure to this new hobby and more and more people are getting into it which is pretty awesome. With the increase of social media and camera phones it does "appear" that tornadoes are more common now than they have been to some media outlets.

Link to the Jan 3rd 2013 tornado:
Watch video >

 

[Stephen Levine]

Thank you Steve..We certainly look forward to seeing an increase of videos and photos from your end of the world as more people get involved. Good luck to you on your chases.