General August Weather

[Tornado Tim]

Boy not often you have an evening in August that its 15°C outside and with a 14°C DP.

[David]

Yes I'm quite liking this mild weather! Another low of 13C last night.

[Orion]

Had some light rain last night; ground-fog for a while this morning but sunny, and chilly: 2.4 degrees now.

[Richard]

A W-NW wind has sprung here along with lots green mist clouds just on 16.1C

[Orion]

A great 'fleet' of lenticular clouds to my west early this afternoon.
Did anyone else think there was a yellowish cast to the sky over the foothills today? smoke? haze?
Currently 11.4 degrees.

[Richard]

A great 'fleet' of lenticular clouds to my west early this afternoon.
Did anyone else think there was a yellowish cast to the sky over the foothills today? smoke? haze?
Currently 11.4 degrees.

Didn't notice a yellow look to the sky but man there was heaps of green pollen here when the NW came through.

[Skywatcher]

For my weather station, August was 0.9°C colder than its average. The average max was actually 0.7°C higher than normal but the min was 1.9°C colder. There were 16 days with air temps below freezing and 5 more days with ground frosts. Max recorded was 22.3°C on the 24th which is a new record for August and minimum was -2.8°C on the 1st.

86mm of precipitation was recorded with almost all of it falling between the 15th and 18th as snow, hail or rain.

[Manukau heads obs]

ending up around 0.5C colder than normal here too
rainfall way down on average too, but not a record dry August (only 55mm or so here)
was good to dry out though after a wet autumn and early winter
the last warm rain has really made the grass bolt around here, which is good
http://www.weather-display.com/windy/gb ... taout.html

[Tornado Tim]

Yes cooler and dryer this August than the other years my station has been up
Average Temperature this Year: 8.8 C compare that to: 2010: 10.7 and 2009: 11.3.

MTD Rainfall 2011: 44.2mm, 2010: 176mm, 2009: 130mm

However I am on par with YTD Rainfall so far which is 888.8mm

[Nev]

Here's Niwa's preliminary, 'August 2011 Climate Summary'.

'Snow & sunshine - very dry in north & west'


National average temp was 0.5C below normal.
Highest temp was 22.1C recorded at Whangarei and Cheviot on the 30th.
Lowest temp was -10.1C recorded at Lake Rotoiti (Nelson Lakes) on the 16th.

Numerous August low daily max-temp records fell on the 15th or 16th, along with quite a few daily min-temp records. Ruakura (Hamilton) and Te Kuiti, along with Nelson and Motueka, recorded their lowest ever long-term August rainfalls. Long-term August sunshine records were also broken around Nelson and Lake Tekapo.

[RWood]

Somewhat more emphasis could be given to the widespread dryness, also the high sunshine readings. Nelson and Blenheim both surpassed the highest sunshine total previously recorded in August in NZ, and Nelson's 247 hours represents a tad over 80% of the recordable amount there. Readings of 80% or more of the possible are extremely rare in New Zealand, and several months of the year have never seen this happen at all - if stations like Queenstown with more restricted horizons are excluded, this has not yet happened in January, April, May, September, October, November or December. This August was the first time for that month.

[RWood]

NIWA's winter summary is out:

http://www.niwa.co.nz/node/102637

The Alexandra claim of a driest winter is only correct for its current site(s), going back to 1983. In earlier years it had some considerably drier winters, with only 15mm in winter 1964 (a year with a "hydroelectric" drought in the South Island, and NZ's lowest ever 12-month rainfall total of 167mm at Alexandra, November 1963-October 1964).

[Nev]

^ Their Akld sunshine totals are also incorrect; it should be 423.9 hrs, or 111% of the normal 381.4 hrs. So above normal, rather than the 'near normal' claimed. Hamilton's 393.2 hrs should also 110% above normal.