General April Weather

[Richard]

Being pouring down for the last two hours but the NIWA CWS in the paddock is not working as it should, it showing 0.6mm up to 5.40pm, should be more like 15-20mm this afternoon alone

[Chris W]

Some wild gusts meaning driving to conditions and staying focused on the drive from Amberley back to town. Not so much rain after Waikuku but some very strong winds, especially around the Ashley and Waimak bridges, given how exposed they are. Some surface flooding along main north, but not much.

[Dean.]

Clearing skies here now after 41mm of rain and a max wind gust of 78km

[tornado]

tornado reported in taranaki today according to stuff.nz


edit: south of oakura.




some damage.

[Thunder081]

The southerly has arrived in Levin there's pouring rain, gusty winds and when it came overhead the wind instantly picked up! damn that would have looked cool if it had hit during the day.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Interesting skies as the southerly cleared up from here this afternoon.
The southerly did come through witha couple of gusts but not as strong as further up the Canterbury Coast.
Interesting southerly lenticular forms over the foothills here later this afternoon.

[tornado]

taranaki apparently got a tornado according o stuff.nz south of oakura. farm shed destroyed. house damaged tress down. weather at least they not using the term "mini"

[Richard]

Being pouring down for the last two hours but the NIWA CWS in the paddock is not working as it should, it showing 0.6mm up to 5.40pm, should be more like 15-20mm this afternoon alone

Found that a sheep has chewed on a wire, not sure if this is the reason for the incorrect recordings, going have to find a way to stop them rubbing up against it, the wire was inside a PVC pipe that a sheep has broken off. The CWS was due for it's check up anyway.

[Cyclone Tracy]

April 2019 stats –

Mean daily temp = 16.2c, right on normal
Rainfall = 76.4mm (15mm below local average)
Prevailing wind SW
1 thunder day. 120 day thunder drought broken on 23rd April.
YTD daily mean temp = 20.0 (Around 1.7c above normal)
YTD rainfall = 153.8mm (332mm normal accum)

[Nev]

April 2019 looks like NZ's coolest April since 2011, due to a relatively cold start.

Apr 2019 Climate Anomaly Maps ℅ NIWA.gif

Some very preliminary April 2019 figures for the main centres:

Code: Select all

Apr 2019 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       20.1   0.0    11.4  -1.0    15.7  -0.5     65   77%    212  131%
Auckland Aero           20.0   0.0    11.8  -0.9    15.9  -0.4     67   79%
Tauranga Aero           20.5  +0.5    10.9  -0.4    15.7  +0.1     92   76%    n/a   n/a
Hamilton Aero           20.3  +0.4     7.3  -1.1    13.8  -0.4     83   94%
Hamilton, Ruakura       20.4  +0.5     8.3  -0.7    14.3  -0.2     74   89%    208  126%
Wellington, Kelburn     15.5  -1.1    11.0  +0.3    13.2  -0.5    221  261%    138   85%
Christchurch Aero       16.7  -0.7     6.6  +0.1    11.6  -0.3     59  134%    148   91%
Dunedin, Musselburgh    15.5  +0.2     8.5  +0.3    12.0  +0.3     68  134%    155  124%
Greymouth Aero          17.1  +0.4     9.1  +0.1    13.1  +0.2    149   76%    210  151%

[David]

Can believe the 130% sunshine, certainly felt like a sunny month.

As for my station - easily the coolest April in my weather station records, being 1.5C below the average for the 9 years prior. And the first month this year to reach average monthly rainfall.

Key stats:
Mean temp = 15.0C
Mean daily max = 20.1C
Mean daily min = 10.3C
Highest temp = 22.5C (27th)
Lowest temp = 5.4C (14th)
Total rainfall = 110 mm, YTD = 219mm

[RWood]

5th wettest April in the Kelburn record, though 2014 was 2nd and 2017 4th! A correction of sorts after the 1981-2010 period had a mean well below the long term average. There were 4 wetter Aprils in the pre-Kelburn period.

[spwill]

Less tropical activity has helped give Auckland a very good run of weather so far this year with very few poor weather days.

[Nev]

Can believe the 130% sunshine, certainly felt like a sunny month.

It was Auckland's 2nd sunniest April (after 2005) since records began in 1910.
And also Hamilton's sunniest April since records began in 1937.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

86.3mm of rain here over 15 days.

[tornado]

auckldgsorathis month and had our first thunder day this year on the 23rd. so that draught is ending slowly. but sunny and rainy month.

[RWood]

Can believe the 130% sunshine, certainly felt like a sunny month.

It was Auckland's 2nd sunniest April (after 2005) since records began in 1910.
And also Hamilton's sunniest April since records began in 1937.

NIWA's summary doesn't mention the sunny month experienced by a large portion of the country - but then the matter of comparing electronic readings and old manual ones is not resolved.

[NZstorm]

I did a quick add up and in the past 12 months to end of April Auckland has had 2338 hours sunshine.

[RWood]

I did a quick add up and in the past 12 months to end of April Auckland has had 2338 hours sunshine.

That total at any of the former manual Auckland sites would be in record territory, underlining the point. In the case of New Plymouth, the before-after differences are much larger.

[Nev]

It was Auckland's 2nd sunniest April (after 2005) since records began in 1910.
And also Hamilton's sunniest April since records began in 1937.

NIWA's summary doesn't mention the sunny month experienced by a large portion of the country - but then the matter of comparing electronic readings and old manual ones is not resolved.

Yes, obviously historic sunshine comparisons should be treated with a fair degree of scepticism - no doubt why NIWA stopped including national sunshine data in its summaries in Dec 2017.

Didn't dissuade them from this tweet yesterday though…
https://twitter.com/NiwaWeather/status/ ... 2309821440

Not sure how NIWA gets 247mm for Kelburn in its Summary, when CliFlo only shows 221.4mm and MS's website 212.4mm (the latter with 9mm less than CliFlo for the calendar-day of the 7th)…

P.S. April's national average temp ended up just 0.1C below normal, its first cooler than normal month since May 2017.

[longaotian]

I did a quick add up and in the past 12 months to end of April Auckland has had 2338 hours sunshine.

That total at any of the former manual Auckland sites would be in record territory, underlining the point. In the case of New Plymouth, the before-after differences are much larger.

Yep. Although i wouldnt think it would be a very big difference. The past 12 months have felt alot sunnier than usual, especially 2019 so far.

[RWood]

NIWA's summary doesn't mention the sunny month experienced by a large portion of the country - but then the matter of comparing electronic readings and old manual ones is not resolved.

Yes, obviously historic sunshine comparisons should be treated with a fair degree of scepticism - no doubt why NIWA stopped including national sunshine data in its summaries in Dec 2017.

Didn't dissuade them from this tweet yesterday though…
https://twitter.com/NiwaWeather/status/ ... 2309821440

Not sure how NIWA gets 247mm for Kelburn in its Summary, when CliFlo only shows 221.4mm and MS's website 212.4mm (the latter with 9mm less than CliFlo for the calendar-day of the 7th)…

P.S. April's national average temp ended up just 0.1C below normal, its first cooler than normal month since May 2017.

Yes indeed. Will look at the April rainfall dailies and probably pick CliFlo version for my Kelburn "mini database".

Re temperature changes month to month in the 7SS, we didn't come very close to the 1968 record for March-April. In the 7SS, May has never been warmer than April but came very close in 1950.

[tich]

It seems like there was an error in the April report, with a claim of an April record low maximum of 8.5C at Whatawhata (west of Hamilton) on the 22nd. Sort of temperature maximum you'd only get in winter during a very cold outbreak or all-day fog in the Waikato, and not during the weather situation that was present that day. I looked up the Whatawhata station and the actual max that day was 18C.