General January Weather

[RWood]

I confirmed that Metservice's report in the Dompost of the 9th cited a sunshine reading of 8.9 hours for the 7th, giving a monthly toal of 218.4 (still well below average). After 2 cloudy years in a row (at least according the manual readings), we need all the help we can get!

There will be variation in sunshine hrs around Wellington and Hutt valley with all the hills and valleys. Auckland will have variation in sunshine hrs across the region due to covergence cloud lines created by the hills, harbours and east v west coast. Over my house it can be cloudy for hrs with sea breeze convergence cloud while 2 km down the road it stays sunny.

Yes, you are in quite a large urban zone with water on both sides. Kelburn is a reasonable proxy for some of Wellington but the eastern suburbs are sunnier - a common situation is to have NW quadrant winds with some low cloud near the western hills while the east is brighter, often verified by travelling there on such days. But 2016 & 2017 were undoubtedly cloudier than average around Wellington, thanks to a very bad 13-month run of almost entirely clouder than average months. I do suspect however that the manual recorder may be showing some sign of deterioration - there are several ways that can happen.

[Nev]

As mentioned by RWood…

Here's NIWA's preliminary, 'January 2018 National Climate Summary'.

New Zealand’s hottest month on record


The national average temp of 20.3C was 3.1C above the 1981-2010 January average, 1.3C higher than NZ's previous hottest January of 1956 and 0.7C higher than its previous hottest ever month of February 1998.

Cromwell and Clyde, which normally record about 6 days above 30C per year, recorded 21 and 20 days respectively above 30C during January 2018.

The month's highest temp of 37.6C was recorded at Clyde on the 30th, and the lowest of 1.0C was recorded at Manapouri on the 7th.

[tich]

As mentioned by RWood…

Here's NIWA's preliminary, 'January 2018 National Climate Summary'.
New Zealand’s hottest month on record

The national average temp of 20.3C was 3.1C above the 1981-2010 January average, 1.3C higher than NZ's previous hottest January of 1956 and 0.7C higher than its previous hottest ever month of February 1998.

I wonder if any other month in NZ has been 3C or more above (or below) normal for the country as a whole.

[RWood]

As mentioned by RWood…

Here's NIWA's preliminary, 'January 2018 National Climate Summary'.
New Zealand’s hottest month on record

The national average temp of 20.3C was 3.1C above the 1981-2010 January average, 1.3C higher than NZ's previous hottest January of 1956 and 0.7C higher than its previous hottest ever month of February 1998.

I wonder if any other month in NZ has been 3C or more above (or below) normal for the country as a whole.

NIWA stated that for their 7-station series, the previous record holder was December with an anomaly of 2.72C

[RWood]

As a belated PS - before this January, there was no instance that I could find in the monthly NIWA summaries of a site having an average Tmax above about 28.7C in any month. This was comfortably beaten in January 2018, with Cromwell EWS just above 29.9C and Alexandra (station 5578) just above 30.1C. In the exceptional heat of January 1956, Alexandra had a 12-day spell from the 10th to 21st inclusive with an average Tmax of 90.0F (32.2C). However in January 2018 Cromwell averaged over 33.3C for 19th-30th, and Alexandra over 33.0C for the same dates.

[Andy]

It was very hot month here in Central.