Will this Summer be as uneventful as Winter was?

[Gary Roberts]

What do you guys think?

[Manukau heads obs]

dunno
cant see much el nino in this SST chart:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/anomsst.shtml

so the predicted el nino has still to eventuate....(got people really guessing that one)

we are way over due to be hit by a TC

[jrj]

Hawke's Bay is also overdue for a drought, in spite of NIWA's gloomy predictions over the years. I note that they are predicting a wet Spring for us, so I guess that it will be quite dry!

[Willoughby]

Alternative to NIWA...
http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/forecast//net_asmt/

Looks warm for summer in NZ! Average rainfall.

[NZstorm]

Would like to see some unstable weather this summer for a change.

we are way over due to be hit by a TC

The last interesting cyclone situation for NZ was late December 1997 I believe. All the camp grounds in Northland were flooded out.

[Manukau heads obs]

i guess though that people who have been affected by stormy weather patterns over the last 2 years are welcoming boring settled weather patterns for a change!

[RWood]

Hawke's Bay is also overdue for a drought, in spite of NIWA's gloomy predictions over the years. I note that they are predicting a wet Spring for us, so I guess that it will be quite dry!

Nontheless you've had more dryish years than wet ones in the last 20 years (graph shows Napier rainfalls over last 50 years)

[Willoughby]

(graph shows Napier rainfalls over last 50 years)

You wouldn't have any historical data on Hamilton would you?
Would be very interested..

[RWood]

(graph shows Napier rainfalls over last 50 years)

You wouldn't have any historical data on Hamilton would you?
Would be very interested..

Unfortunately not Foggy - have only got summarised rainfall for a handful of stations (though do have years of "Digest" and predecessor monthly pubs. - but would have to copy out numbers by hand from these!). If you enquire of Stuart Burgess or Kevin McGill at NIWA they would supply you with monthly & annual rainfalls for Ruakura, which I believe go back many years, for no charge (or possibly a smallish charge).

Hope that helps.

[Willoughby]

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the reply, I may look into it

[Willoughby]

we are way over due to be hit by a TC

The last interesting cyclone situation for NZ was late December 1997 I believe. All the camp grounds in Northland were flooded out.

I remember clearly camping at Whangamata, unsure if this was the same cyclone, think it was Drena in Jan '97..but we went to the beach front early morning and the heavy seas that night took one hell of a big bite of land! Everyone was bewildered, I certainly was

Yes bring on the cyclones

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

i guess though that people who have been affected by stormy weather patterns over the last 2 years are welcoming boring settled weather patterns for a change!

I think I would have to tend to agree with you on this one Brian.
Disruptive weather has occured when the general public have been on hoilday during the summer months.

JohnGaul
NZTS

[NZstorm]

The last interesting cyclone situation for NZ was late December 1997 I believe

That was actually 30th December 1996, TC Fergus. Northland/Coromandal and Gisborne experience floods.

And then on 10th of January 1997 T.C. Drena which turned out to be a bit of a fizzer with the worst of it passing south just west of Northland/Auckland. East coast South Island however did get heavy rain as the deep low tracked away into the SE.

[jrj]

I remember Fergus in December 96. We were on a motoring holiday round the East Cape, to Gisborne, and it chased us back to Hawke's Bay!
(Got my first speed-camera ticket in the process, but it wouldn't wash as an excuse!)

[Manukau heads obs]

i remember with fergus, and the late angela deordney on 1ZB interviewed the met office....she asked about people getting prepared, and how strong the winds would get....auge aurer was quoting computer models which showed that by 10am that morning gale force winds should have developed as far south as Te awamutu......well at 8am there was only 15 kt winds in auckland, so I phoned up 1ZB and pointed out to them that the wind would have to pick up first in northland and auckland before it would in the waikato, and that the latest sat pictures i was looking at, and the pressure maps available...there was just not much of a pressure squeeze going on...the high was not putting up any fight at all....i got on the air that morning

[spwill]

That was actually 30th December 1996, TC Fergus. Northland/Coromandal and Gisborne experience floods

Had a very big swells in Auckland harbour form that storm.
Lots of Beach/Seaside side property damage and many of the City beachs lost a lot of thier sand.


Sunny and mild here today and the harbour is flat.

[NZstorm]

Brian, did you have internet coverage back then?

I didn't, I remember using the Met Service fax service to get the latest satellite pic of the cyclone. I didn't start watching the weather via the internet until 1998.

Anyway, there was also a third TC near NZ that summer, TC Freda late in January 97 which actually just missed NZ. Augie Auer made a name for himself by providing updates on them.

[Manukau heads obs]

i actualy hada satellite dish and receiver and short wave radio, so i was able to get the GMS IR sat images every 3 hours, and MSLA maps via short wave radio every 6 hours or so too, all downloaded to the PC at the time
I had dial up internet too, from memory.....Xtra .....but i could be wrong...al;l a bit foggy now

[Gary Roberts]

i actualy hada satellite dish and receiver and short wave radio, so i was able to get the GMS IR sat images every 3 hours, and MSLA maps via short wave radio every 6 hours or so too, all downloaded to the PC at the time
I had dial up internet too, from memory.....Xtra .....but i could be wrong...al;l a bit foggy now

Those were the days...I remember a kludged setup we put together back in the late '70s/early '80s. A massive helical antenna which needed two guys to drive (no motorised trackers in the budget then either...) and some of the klunkiest gear known to mankind. Lots of fun.

Then we built 5m and 10m partabolics and used them for both sat work and RA, which meant lots of dicking around changing LMBs and feeds and the like. Those were fun days of hacking together mounts, encoders, controllers and code to drive everything. It was ages and heaps of effort, then a few years later I saw nearly identical systems marketed for optical telescopes (although much smaller scale...we were driving heavy equipment).

Then we conned our way into the university's ARPA feed (none of that newfangled "Internet" back in them days!)...it was so unreliable that we ended up sending data from satellites via other satellites!

Great fun.

[Manukau heads obs]

before she married me, the wife did not know I was a weather freak
first job after getting married:
holding a satellite dish for hours, trying to the get the best alignment ...shouting lots of instructions out a window....she must have wondered what she married

[tich]

And then on 10th of January 1997 T.C. Drena which turned out to be a bit of a fizzer with the worst of it passing south just west of Northland/Auckland. East coast South Island however did get heavy rain as the deep low tracked away into the SE.

Drena caused plenty of damage, but it was largely in the form of heavy seas lashing coasts exposed to the north, even normally shelted coasts like Thames and Tasman Bay near Motueka. The heavy rain, though it did cause some flooding, was welcome in Canterbury as it followed a long spell of drying westerlies and northwesterlies.

Anyway, there was also a third TC near NZ that summer, TC Freda late in January 97 which actually just missed NZ. Augie Auer made a name for himself by providing updates on them.

I recall a another cyclone that season (March?), but it only caused rain and gale damage in the East Cape area north of about Gisborne.

[Michael]

As long as its not boring 8/8 wet and windy and cold the whole time

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

As long as its not boring 8/8 wet and windy and cold the whole time

...like what it is at the moment?

JohnGaul
NZTS

[Michael]

Well we never go from winter like temps to summer like ones until we have endured a spring of at least 4 months of galeforce winds and rain