General January Weather

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Pretty orange sunset clouds tonight

Yes. A nice sunset
NW winds up to nearly gale strength today but have died down at the moment.
I see on the radar it has been raining in ChCh with some red blobs

[Chris W]

Strong upward motion in the wave cloud according to MetService, amazing being underneath the torrential downpour! Then an astonishing sunset.

[Richard]

We were in Philpstown during that shower, wasnt much there but you could tell there had been a lot more north side of CHCH going by the water laying.

[Razor]

Astounding sunset last night. 8am this morning and 26 degrees already

[David]

Certainly a muggy day with dewpoint up around 20C. Hopefully some rain for the garden later, it's getting very dry!

[spwill]

Whangarei around 30C with a dewpoint of 20C.
Auckland up to 27C, dp 20C, mostly overcast skies here.

[Tornado Tim]

Yup very humid here, Dew Point up to 21, odd brief partly sunny periods pushing the temp up along with the DP.....

[Manukau heads obs]

SW wind change here now
temperature dropped to 18c now
only 1mm of rain here today, despite 20C DP

[mikestormchaser]

Thursday looking juicy for thunder/ severe hail for South island. 4 days out is still changeable but looks good!

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I'm thinking the same there, Mike
Got a 4 out of 5 chance at the moment but that may wain as we get closer to the event.
Next WE well late WE looks interesting as well

[NZstorm]

No measurable precip here today.

Thursdays front looking weak for these parts so things starting to look dry here.

[Manukau heads obs]

check out the low in the GFS model for next weekend

[jamie]

Today was such a waste of humid air!

[Richard]

check out the low in the GFS model for next weekend

Yes, looking amazing, just hope it holds up in the models

Yet another day of gales at times here today.

[Tornado Tim]

check out the low in the GFS model for next weekend

The system also is in the EC prognostic outlook, although in a position further south.
Something to keep an eye on....

[Orion]

My Whangaparaoa Spies are having to buy a tanker-load of water each already.

[Manukau heads obs]

Yet another day of gales at times here today.

Was full on gale here today too at one stage
been the worse summer weather here since the 90's

[Richard]

I miss the hot, light winds anticyclonic summers of 10 years ago, this one has been so windy.

[Dean.]

A deep Tasman low keeps popping up in the models for next weekend.

This would disrupt the harvest

http://metvuw.com/forecast/forecast1.ph ... si&tim=186

Yes...popping in and out of the models for over a week now...as long as it hits Sunday onwards and doesn't affect our concert in Queenstown Saturday

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Warm and windy day here with clear skies and up to 28.6C.
As far as anticyclones go, I have never seen so much of a lack of them around here at the moment.
Little ridges of high pressure up to about 1015 to 1020 hPa is about the best we are getting at the moment, drifting NE from off the Tasman Sea.

[harleyb]

This summer reminds me of early 2004 with its incessant westerlies and deep lows, one of which interacted with a subtropical low in Feb 2004 to cause all that damage across the lower North Island. Yesterday afternoon's sky had what looked like jet stream cloud streaming in from the NW so presumably that means more of the same in the short term. This feels more like October than midsummer!

[Manukau heads obs]

actually I forgot about Feb 2004
yes there was a major storm that crossed the NI ...we were on a plane from Napier...was a very hairy landing at auckland airport with 55 knots average speed on the metar!

its interesting how the tasman sea is heating up and the SOI index is heading towards La NIna again
maybe Feb will be more La Nina like

[RWood]

Dreadful 4 1/2 months here. On track for record low January sun - and a good chance thereby of getting even less sun for the period Sept-Jan than in 1992-93. Not to mention higher rainfall and a much higher rainday count than usual.

[spwill]

The east side of the Auckland region having a better Summer this year than the west side particularly where Brian lives up on the west coast hill top .

[Nev]

Hasn't exactly been beach weather here so far this summer, with what seems like cooler temps due to the incessant winds. Add to that the lack of rainfall - 27mm last month and only 6mm so far this month. On the plus side, Akld sunshine hours are up and mozzie and fly numbers are down…