General May Weather

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

A cold but sunny blue dome day with not much wind under the anticyclone conditions.
Frosty already with it being minus 0.8C at 10pm this evening.

[spwill]

Omarama currently on -8.6C and Tmaru -7.5C, Metservice.

Some thunderstorm activity looks possible for the upper North Island this weekend, see how it looks on the day.

[Nev]

Ranfurly down to -9.3C and Middlemarch -8.8C this morning according to NIWA.

Edit: Make that -9.9C for Middlemarch this morning.

[Chris W]

3C passing through New Brighton this morning and then -2C in Kaiapoi. Some nice frost in the latter case.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

After a good frost this morning, a lovely fine day and a fine evening, good for eclipsing.
From minus 5.7C, it climbed up to 11.8C for today.
Minus 2.2C at 11:45pm.

[Awhituobs]

eclipse looked great last night, cloud cleared away
moon was still super bright early this morning..was like day light outside

[David]

Certainly a cool start this morning, down to 4.2C on my station.

[Razor]

Certainly a cool start this morning, down to 4.2C on my station.

Thats about 15 degrees warmer than Omarama this morning...

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

eclipse looked great last night, cloud cleared away
moon was still super bright early this morning..was like day light outside

The Moon here was very bright before and following the eclipse but the actual eclipse to the naked eye was rather disappointing as it just looked like a small blob in the sky with the constellation of Scorpio in the background.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Another good frost this morning with a fine day eventuating, however thin high cloud from the north developing this afternoon but remaining rather cool this evening with frosting forming again. Down to minus 0.1C at 10pm.
Looking forward to the oncoming wet weather this WE.

[darcyplumb]

Well I wasn’t expecting this to appear on the radar today. Sky is very dark looking towards the foothills from Ashburton.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Frosty overnight with it getting down to minus 1.7C but however the frost went off as cloud moved in from the west from early this morning.
A generally cloudy and cold day with it getting up to 10.3C. Some rain around late morning and later this evening. 1.6mm for today.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

A rather wet day here in Geraldine. 62.1mm of rain recorded here. Temperature rising to 10.1C when the wind took a more easterly direction.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Overcast and a wee bit wet here in Geraldine, today, with 181.1mm of rain falling. Seems to be easing away now. South to SE winds.
Top temperature was 11.1C recorded at 10pm this evening.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Another 28.2mm of rain overnight, contributing to a grand total of 272.1mm for this event, making it a wet May for here.
Prior to the deluge, only 17.2mm fell.
Total PPT for the month is 289.3mm.
Maximum temperature for the month was 20.7C on Tuesday the 4th.
Minimum of minus 5.7C on the morning of Wednesday the 26th, plus a another frost of minus 5.4C the next night.
Here a picture of the Waihi River taken around noon.

[Cyclone Tracy]

May 2021 stats locally –

Mean daily temp = 14.8 (-0.1c 2018/20 average)
Rainfall = 43mm (-86mm 2001/2020 average)
Prevailing wind SSW
2 thunder days.
Humidity 79.7% (-1.4% average)

YTD
daily temp 18.64c , -0.38c average (2018/2020)
Rainfall 267mm , -197mm average (2001/2020)

[David]

Howick - May 2021

Summary
Warm first half and cool second half with overall temperatures ending up near average. Drier than average.

Stats:
Mean temp = 14.1C (+0.2C)
Mean daily high = 18.3C (+0.2C)
Mean daily low = 10.5C (+0.4C)
Highest temp = 20.7C (on day 12)
Lowest temp = 3.4C (on day 14)
Total rainfall= 78.4mm (-44mm, or 64% of average)
YTD rainfall = 391.4mm (-57mm, or 87% of average)

[Nev]

A relatively mild and sunny May overall. Generally dry for most of the North Island, but late heavy rains for central and northern areas of the South Island, especially around Canterbury.

MetService May 2021 Summary - Flooding rain to end autumn

May got off to a very settled start with high pressure across the board. From the 10th we saw a low in the Southern Ocean bring several northwesterly fronts over the course of a week with rain to western parts. After that high pressure returned. All of this led to the dry regions of both islands missing out on the rain before that changed in a major way for South Island.

The final weekend of autumn brought flooding rain to eastern South Island which led to a medium-scale adverse event being declared for the Canterbury region due to the flooding. MetService issued a rare Red Warning for Heavy Rain, just the second ever, providing advanced notice of the impending severe weather and helping people prepare. Parts of Canterbury High Country saw over 500mm of rain, whilst Christchurch saw over 130mm and Ashburton over 150mm. Culverden got three times more rain in this event than in the rest of the year to date combined.

On the whole temperatures were a touch above average for May, and it was a sunnier than average month almost everywhere.

May 2021 Climate Anomaly Maps ℅ NIWA.png

Preliminary May 2021 figures for the main centres:

Code: Select all

May 2021 Average Temps, Rainfall, Sunshine and departures from 1981-2010 normals ℅ NIWA

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

Auckland, Mangere       18.3  +0.8    10.7  +0.3    14.5  +0.5     55   51%    158  110%
Auckland Aero           18.1  +0.7    10.8  +0.2    14.4  +0.4     67   61%
Tauranga Aero*          19.1  +1.8     9.1  -0.2    14.1  +0.8    113  102%    n/a   n/a
Hamilton Aero           17.4  +0.6     6.3  -0.1    11.8  +0.2     69   65%
Hamilton, Ruakura       17.9  +1.0     6.9   0.0    12.4  +0.5     57   59%    141   98%
Wellington, Kelburn     15.0  +0.7     9.7  +0.7    12.3  +0.6    154  138%    145  109%
Christchurch Aero       15.7  +1.4     3.3  -0.4     9.5  +0.5    165  286%    173  124%
Dunedin, Musselburgh    14.6  +1.9     6.1  +0.2    10.4  +1.1     59   91%    149  137%
Greymouth Aero          15.0  +0.5     7.2  +0.1    11.1  +0.3    267  135%    124  121%

* Tauranga missing 4 days of temp data