General May Weather

[Richard]

Southerly hit here smack on 3.00,might get a shower out of it looking at the radar .

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Year. The temperature dropped away when the SW change came through here around 1:30pm.
A gust front as shown on the photograph on Steven Graham's posting, of it moving over Templeton.
Down to 9C by 4pm from 20C late morning here.
Some drizzly showers later this afternoon and evening.

[Storm Struck]

Yes yes indeed very interesting , nice to see a gust front at this time of the year came through with gusts around 50-60kmh and a sharp drop in temperature as mentioned.

[Nev]

Chch metars show 21.C at 1:30pm, dropping to 11C by 2:00pm, accompanied by gusts to 85 km/h. Gusts also up to 120km/h at Le Bons Bay.

[treetop]

Almost a summer pattern again developing[apart from the cold !] so looks like an extended warmish wet period up north with moist E//NE winds 18/20 deg.Alot of low pressure over east Australia which is unusual for this time of year. Lack of Upper level winds will keep things slow for a while.

[spwill]

I wish it was Summer the westerlies drop south with an extended period of easterly flow over northern NZ.

[David]

extended period of easterly flow over northern NZ

And looking like a dry pattern to go along with it. Maybe June could be a below-average rainfall month as well as May.

[jamie]

We will finish the month on just 80mm and average is 102. Doesnt sound like anything significant until we look at rainfall since Jan

1st Jan - 1st June average is 407mm for here.

2013 (major drought) we ended at 412mm. We had a very wet Apr and May.

2014 (major drought) we will end at 274mm. Thats 133mm behind the average. We have a looong way to go to reach our usual 1200mm we get each year. We need to average 160mm/month for the rest of the year to catch back up. I cant see that happening.

[matttbs]

Mt hutt opens next week on the 7th and there is next to no snow, those NWers kept gate crashing after a fresh snowfall. May the weather gods be kind to hutt this season

[melja]

Well they never really pick up any snow in the last few events and its all been man made and that is never going to last long with out a real base.

[03Stormchaser]

Cold night watching the footy at AMI tonight, dipped below zero.

[tunster]

Last Monday afternoon, Kelburn had a dewpoint of -5C with a temperature of 11C. Don't see that often.

[Skywatcher]

May results for my station:

Ave min: 4.8C
Ave max: 16.5C
Mean: 10.2C

Min: -3.1C on 27th
Max: 23.6C on 29th

Rain: 54.8mm on 9 days with 30.2mm on 14th (YTD 400mm).

[Nev]

A fairly mild May, sunny and dry for most, apart from the west and south of the South Island.

May 2014 Cilmate Anomaly Maps.gif

Some very preliminary May 2014 temp and rainfall figures for the main centres:

Code: Select all

May 2014 Average Temps, Rainfall and departures from their 1981-2010 normals ℅ NIWA

Site                      T-max °C       T-min °C       T-mean °C    Rainfall mm

Auckland, Mangere        18.5  +1.0     10.3  -0.1     14.4  +0.4      54   50% 
Auckland Aero            18.0  +0.6      9.9  -0.7     14.0  ±0.0      80   73% 
Tauranga Aero            18.4  +1.1      8.7  -0.6     13.5  +0.2      28   26% 
Hamilton Aero            17.2  +0.4      5.6  -0.8     11.4  -0.2      80   75% 
Hamilton, Ruakura        17.6  +0.7      6.3  -0.6     11.9  ±0.0      69   71% 
Wellington, Kelburn      15.0  +0.7      9.7  +0.7     12.4  +0.7      73   66% 
Christchurch Aero        15.9  +1.6      3.4  -0.3      9.6  +0.6      37   64% 
Dunedin, Musselburgh     13.8  +1.1      5.9  ±0.0      9.9  +0.6      75  116% 

Edit: Updated Hamilton Aero figures.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

The rainfall total was 52.2mm for the month here over 10 days, with 0.8mm of that, dew/frost melt.
509.8mm for the YTD.
Maximum temperature was 20.7C on the 6th
...and the minimum was minus 3.7 on the 31st and 27th.

[Manukau heads obs]

the much colder temperatures in the Raglan area seem out of place....

[tich]

I guess the cold snap and frosts of the last week would've pushed the monthly average temps down somewhat. Earlier in the month it looked as if we were heading for a much warmer than normal May.

[spwill]

Coldest May morning on record for Auckland on Wednesday 28th according to this story. http://news.msn.co.nz/nationalnews/8853 ... y-day-ever
I was in Wanaka on the 28th and the minimum there was 7C.

[Nev]

Here's NIWA's preliminary, 'May 2014 National Climate Summary'.


The national average temp of 11.4C was 0.7C above normal.

The month's highest temp of 26.0C was recorded at Napier Aero on the 6th, and the lowest of -7.4C was recorded at Middlemarch on the 30th.

Milford Sound recorded a whopping 1337mm, its 2nd-highest May rainfall, while Wairoa recorded its lowest ever May rainfall with no rain at all.

Some high May sunshine totals included Auckland's 2nd-highest, along with Mangere's 2nd lowest May daily T-min and 3rd highest daily T-max.

Edit: Updated link.

[David]

Wairoa recorded its lowest ever May rainfall with no rain at all.

Must be an error there. This Wairoa PWS reports 100mm for May http://wairoa.net/weather/noaa-reports.htm