Re: General February Weather

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Another generally cloudy day with light winds. Only 17.5C for today. Clagg settling in later this afternoon with some drizzle this evening.

[Richard]

Looks like we will finish the three month summer period with a total 29mm. Locally Waiau received 66mm during that period, mostly on 15th Dec and in which 44mm fall in a 40min time span. Cheviot 38.4mm.
Be interesting to know if the 29.0mm is the lowest in NZ.

[Nev]

Looks like we will finish the three month summer period with a total 29mm. Locally Waiau received 66mm during that period, mostly on 15th Dec and in which 44mm fall in a 40min time span. Cheviot 38.4mm.
Be interesting to know if the 29.0mm is the lowest in NZ.

And yet you posted 32.5mm for Dec? Are you sure you don't mean 29mm for just Jan and Feb?

Dec recordings for Medbury-
rainfall - 32.5mm
...

Also, where are you getting those Waiau and Cheviot figures from, particularly as NIWA's Waiau site doesn't show any rain around Dec 15th?

Code: Select all

NIWA 2023/24 Summer Rainfalls (mm) to 9am on Feb 29th

Site             Dec    Jan    Feb      Total
Medbury          32.6   10.4   18.2     61.2
Culverden        33.4    8.8   18.8     61.0
Waiau School     27.8    9.2   25.2     62.2
Cheviot          47.4    7.0   44.8     99.2

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Another rather cold day to end the meteorological summer of 2023 and 2024. Managed to get to 20C this afternoon with a bit of sunshine after the clagg and cloud cleared away from lunch time. NE winds this afternoon. Fine evening.

[Richard]

That Neon system is a pain in bum, when you put in a certain time period to look at it leaves out some and it you dont check over it properly like Ive just done it can be bloody a confusing system. Why have a start and end date system if it does give you what's been asked

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Stats from Geraldine for February.

Min - 4.5C (Sun 11th)
Max - 30.7C (Mon 19th)
L Max - 17.2C (Sat 3rd)
H Min - 15.9C (Tues 6th)
PPT - 39.9mm over 13 days
3 days over 30C.

[Nev]

NZ's very dry summer continued through February for many places. However, unlike the previous 2 exceptionally warm months, February's national average temp was close to normal.

MetService February 2024 Brief Summary

The final month of summer saw a return to a very active westerly weather pattern, which brought a myriad of rainfall events across western South Island, while eastern regions from Marlborough to south Canterbury experienced a very dry month. High pressure and dry weather also prevailed across the North Island.

Soil moisture deficits increased across most of the North Island and eastern South Island. This is characteristic of a more classical El Nino summer weather pattern, and shows that while El Nino is on a weakening trend, its effects remain present. More frequent bouts of strong northwesterly winds were also seen, particularly across eastern South Island. When combined with the drying soils and vegetation, this provided ripe conditions for fire weather and helped trigger and fan the flames of the Lee Valley and Port Hills fires.

The final week of February saw high pressure over the North Island weaken, which allowed a rain event to progress further north across the upper North Island. Without this event, soil moisture would have ended up even drier compared to current conditions.

February was characterised by large temperature swings, with near-freezing temperatures recorded across parts of the country following cold frontal passages, and otherwise generally warm conditions in the prevailing westerly flow.

Feb 2024 Climate Anomaly Maps ℅ NIWA.png

Preliminary stats for the main centres:

Code: Select all

Feb 2024 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       25.1  +1.1    15.5  -0.9    20.3  +0.1     35   62%    260  128%
Tauranga Aero           25.5  +1.1    14.9  -0.9    20.2  +0.1     80   96%
Hamilton Aero *         25.2  +0.2    11.7  -1.4    18.5  -0.6     72   99%    253  137%
Wellington, Kelburn *   20.6   0.0    14.2  +0.3    17.4  +0.1     37   66%    231  109%
Christchurch Aero       22.8  +0.6    11.0  -0.5    16.9   0.0     32   80%    216  111%
Dunedin, Musselburgh    19.8  +1.1    11.6  +0.1    15.7  +0.6     38   54%    189  113%
Greymouth Aero          19.8   0.0    10.9  -1.8    15.4  -0.9     98   62%    230  118%

* Hamilton sunshine from Ruakura. * Wellington missing 1 day's data.