General March Weather

[David]

Will be interesting to see how cold it gets tonight - my record for March over the last 14 years is 6.3C in 2010, could see similar tomorrow morning.

[Storm Struck]

Certainly very chilly this morning, and so early on in the season definitely noticing the change to El Nino compared to the last 4 years.
Showers still coming through with heavy hail, 2-3mm in diameter.
If the day heats up abit more we might hear a clap of thunder in them.

[tich]

Bits of hail in heavier showers in St Albans this morning. Dusting of snow visible on Mt Herbert.

[Orion]

Sudden squall right now, something rattly falling in the rain. 7.4°C.

[Richard]

Hasn't been much rain here over the last day or so, 8mm.

[darcyplumb]

Sudden squall right now, something rattly falling in the rain. 7.4°C.

Another one coming in now.

[Orion]

^ I see that.

6.7°C.

[Razor]

38mm at home in Halswell since yesterday morning. Turning out to be a wet month

[Richard]

Just short of 70mm for March here, so around the average. The dairy farm next door had the central pivot going yesterday, wouldn't have thought it was dry enough to have that going.

[David]

A max temp of 17.8C here today. Looking at my monthly records the previous lowest daily max for March was 18.7C, so that's one March record down...

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

A bit of a similar day to yesterday but wintry showers moving up from the south gradually easing as the surface barometer pressure rose.
South to SW winds gradually easing. The sun came out this afternoon making it pleasant in the conservatory where I fell asleep reading today's Timaru Herald 11.6C the maximum temperature for today.
0.9mm of rain for today.

[spwill]

Looks like the first morning of the year when the temperature across Auckland dropped below 10C.

[David]

Bottomed out at 6.4C here around 5am, just 0.1C off the March record

[spwill]

A cloudy humid weekend coming up for Auckland. Rain or showers here Saturday, lighter isolated showers Sunday.
Conditions unstable enough for a thunderstorm risk on Saturday, dew point temperatures 18C on Saturday.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

A generally fine and sunny day here with light southerly winds. 14.3C for today. Cool night with it dipping down to 1.7C about 7am this morning.
Mt. Peel this afternoon.

[David]

My station recorded a 24hr mean temp of 12.5C yesterday, previous lowest for March (since 2010) was 13.8C

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Nice fine sunny day here today with light NE. 18.3C the max for today'
High cloud increasing this evening.

[Nev]

After record summer rainfalls for the upper and eastern North Island and droughts in the southern and western South Island, the tables seem to have reversed for March. The month was also noticeably cooler for the upper North Island, which brought March's overall national average temp down to near normal.

Mar 2023 Climate Anomaly Maps ℅ NIWA.png

Preliminary stats for the main centres:

Code: Select all

Mar 2023 Average Temps, Rainfall, Sunshine and departures from 1991-2020 normals ℅ NIWA

Site                     T-max °C      T-min °C      T-mean °C     Rain mm      Sun hrs

Auckland, Mangere       22.6   0.0    13.8  -1.0    18.2  -0.5     37   41%    258  128%
Tauranga Aero *         22.9   0.0    13.6  -0.3    18.3  -0.1     74   78%    
Hamilton Aero *         22.4  -0.7     9.7  -1.4    16.0  -1.1     61   75%    244  123%
Wellington, Kelburn     19.1   0.0    12.9  +0.2    16.0  +0.1    134  134%    195   96%
Christchurch Aero       19.9  -0.4     9.7  +0.2    14.8  -0.1    126  279%    206  108%
Dunedin, Musselburgh    18.9  +1.3    10.7  +0.5    14.8  +0.9    106  197%    189  114%
Greymouth Aero          19.9  +1.2    11.5  +0.1    15.7  +0.7    291  166%    199  111%

* Tauranga missing 2 day's rainfall * Hamilton sunshine from Ruakura 

[spwill]

Whangaparaoa had an average maximum temperature of 23.2C, ave min 14.6C this March, that was the warmer side of the Auckland region.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

March readings from Geraldine.

min - 1.5C Thursday 30th
max - 28.2C Thursday 2nd
Highest min - 16.1C Friday 2nd
Lowest maximum - 11.6C Wednesday 29th.
Total rain fall was 61.2mm over 16 days.

[Richard]

Stats for Medbury

min - 1.7C - 14th
max - 26.4C - 2nd and 3rd
Highest min - 14.8 C 2nd
Lowest maximum - 9.1C - 29th.
Total rain fall was 70.8mm.
Thunder days - 1