General August Weather

[spwill]

The sun came back today, reached 17-18C.

A feature of August weather has been the lack of cold flows onto NZ, no low level snowfall this month which is unusual.

[Richard]

Really the whole of winter saw only the one polar outbreak which is even more unusual

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

..... and I was glad I was in the UK and missed it.
mind you that Spring in the month-wize sense, arrives tomorrow, there could be a Spring type of polar blast in the pipeline within the next 3 months.

[Manukau heads obs]

a warm and wet and less windy august here;
http://www.weather-display.com/windy/gb ... 82012.html

[Tornado Tim]

a warm and wet and less windy august here;

Same here the Avg Temperature rose to 10.6°C from last years 8.8°C, thats a rise of 1.8°C!
The rainfall climbed to 151.4mm from 2011's 44.2mm.

More info here: http://matangiweather.org/lookback.php? ... th=2012-08

[Skywatcher]

The average I recorded of 8.9°C was 1.5°C higher than the 10 year average. This was mostly due to higher min temps with only one air frost recorded and only three other days dipping below 1°C, all near the end of the month.

111mm of rain in August (on 16 days) means a total of 328.8mm for winter.

[tich]

Really the whole of winter saw only the one polar outbreak which is even more unusual

Several in June I recall, but none since.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

111mm of rain in August (on 16 days) means a total of 328.8mm for winter.

144.3mm over here in West Melton (also 16 days with 2 traces) .

[spwill]

The Niwa summary https://www.niwa.co.nz/sites/default/fi ... inal_0.pdf

Probably some quite high average maximums in the north, around 17C.

[snowstormwatcher]

179mm of rain here for August, Well above normal.

[spwill]

Some Pelicans turned up on the Kaipara , was that weather related ? It is a large enough group to start breeding here.

[RWood]

@ TonyT: and so did anyone predict it if it was predictable?

A cloudier, colder, and probably wetter season was in our long range predictions from March through June. They included statements like this:
"So long as the ENSO pattern trends away from La Nina towards El Nino we can expect to see weather systems around New Zealand to continue to be highly variable, with storms developing in the Tasman Sea and moving over the country, and ridges of high pressure angling to bring periods of easterly and southerly airflow over Canterbury. This was the pattern we anticipated some months ago when we predicted a colder and cloudier than usual winter for Canterbury, and it is what seems to be happening."

Instead of focussing on the La Nina/El Nino look at the trend, that often is more illuminating and helpful in a predictive sense IMO.

But thanks to the averageish July and mild August, Ch'ch Aero had a total Tmean surplus of +0.8C for the winter (so almost 0.3C above average for the season). (August data from NIWA provisional values in the summary).

Rainfall was of course unfavourable, though.

[NZstorm]

Some Pelicans turned up on the Kaipara , was that weather related ? It is a large enough group to start breeding here.

Must have come across on the W wind. And they are fully protected by the wildlife act so I hope no idiot tries to shoot them!

[TonyT]

But thanks to the averageish July and mild August, Ch'ch Aero had a total Tmean surplus of +0.8C for the winter (so almost 0.3C above average for the season). (August data from NIWA provisional values in the summary).

Rainfall was of course unfavourable, though.

Correct. And there wouldnt be a single person in Canterbury who would describe this past winter as anything other than "cold". Its the day time maximums which people judge seasons on (by and large) not the overall mean.

[melja]

But thanks to the averageish July and mild August, Ch'ch Aero had a total Tmean surplus of +0.8C for the winter (so almost 0.3C above average for the season). (August data from NIWA provisional values in the summary).

Rainfall was of course unfavourable, though.

Correct. And there wouldnt be a single person in Canterbury who would describe this past winter as anything other than "cold". Its the day time maximums which people judge seasons on (by and large) not the overall mean.

Couldnt agree more with that tony, this average temp thing is a bit misleading for how we perceive the season to be.
Nothing but cold damp and cloudy for the 3 or so months on the whole( during the day).

[RWood]

Clearly the winter mean was "propped up" by relatively high night minima. I think the distinction might be less important in summer with the longer daylight, as more people would presumably be out and about early in the morning and also later in the evening.

I guess this really belongs to a winter review thread ...

[RWood]

Back on the Christchurch winter temperatures (Aero data, August computed from daily data downloaded from NIWA's CliFlo). It seems things are not as straightforward as they first looked.

Mean Tmax and Tmin at Ch'ch Aero (departures from 1981-2010 normals in brackets):

June 10.7 (-1.0) -0.2 (-1.3)
July 11.8 (+0.9) 0.3 (-0.3)
August 12.7 (+0.3) 4.9 (+2.9)

So overall, the Tmax average was about normal, and the Tmin average a little above.

What could have contributed to an impression of coldness? - perhaps

(a) High rainfall and a higher number of rain days.
(b) 32 hours sunshine deficiency in August and for winter overall {June and July sun values were normal}
(c) A higher than normal frequency of chilling onshore winds.

[melja]

Not much into stats, they dont tell the whole story but we used around 15m of wood and this being way more than normal so to me it was cold! and dull for long spells.

[TonyT]

The last 10 days of August were mild and pleasant and must have brought the Tmax numbers up compared to what they were for the first 3 weeks of the month. Spring started about August 20th here, not on 1st September

[Michael]

A good winter in my opinion,can count the unusually low run of sw days on 1 hands fingers since mid june,think sept be more "wintery"