Radar Aurora

Did anyone in New Zealand sea the news item on TV One just before the weather forecast tonight (Mon May 16th)? Amongst the still photos of the aurora was a snippet of an aminmated radar image taken from the TIGER Radar at Invercargill. This was very interesting as the radar covered only a segment from South to SW. I maybe wrong but I think that the radar covers that area to overlap the readings from Tasmania to build up a 3-D image. At one stage the whole segment was covered in auroral activity. One of the photos taken from either Tekapo or Southland clearly showed a SAR Arc, a large homogenous red band ahead of the green arc.

In typically frustrating fashion this display arrived at the same time as a huge sub-tropical low from Queensland, Australia. Most if not all of the North Island was clagged out. Still as far as this cycle goes we have only missed a couple of major storms in this fashion so I for one can't really complain. As Rod Austin (of Comet Austin fame) said in an e-mail earlier tonight, the approaching system on the satellite view looked like M 83 was coming to absorb the North Island!