NZ Weather Forum

Winter is coming wrote:Is the ski season over. It hasn't started yet in Canterbury still waiting for the club fields to open! Looks promising for some heavy snow Sat afternoon through Sunday.

A dusting maybe, heavy snow? Doubt it!

spring like here today
17C in Auckland I see

Mt Hutt will have over a metre by this time next week...

Bradley wrote:Mt Hutt will have over a metre by this time next week...

Please explain your reasoning behind this

Big call to make. Only sitting on 50cm atm

Yeah and the NWer cranks up again late monday until at least Thursday
Maybe hes just a little snow blind

What is the highest maximum for July in Christchurch? we must have pushed pretty close today, I remember 22C back in 2004 but that was late August closer to spring.
I think what Bradley is referring to is a potential snow advective event, which is looking quite likely at the moment and wouldn't surprise me to see 40-50cm for many of the Canterbury ski fields overnight Saturday into Sunday.
A low crosses Canterbury from the west and is running into a cold developing southerly being wipped up from far south, so it will be quite significant potentially down to 300m with heavy snow possible.
Heavy rain even possible overnight for the city going by the maps.

Yeah but i just dont see the cold air, sure it maybe cool but not that cold.
The wind might end up southerly but the general flow is still westerly and in no way comes up from the deep south.

GFS showing heavy snow for the high country Sunday,EC model just shows a brief southerly flick Sunday morning.
Metservice must be keeping an eye on the situation with it being mentioned in the severe outlook.

Report of a damaging waterspout/tornado in South Beach, Greymouth on Wednesday...

'Twister hits West Coast' - NZ Herald

Nev wrote:Report of a damaging waterspout/tornado in South Beach, Greymouth on Wednesday...

'Twister hits West Coast' - NZ Herald

Wonder if we will see these photos mentioned at the end of the article

I dont think this weather system is packing as much punch as forecast on the west coast, my folks say its hardly rained with warm sun out a lot and its seems Hoki only had 5mm yesterday an 14mm the day before despite the forecast of heavy rain and thunderstorms for them.
Haast has only had 13, 27,13 and 7mm since the system started.

Warm over night here again with a low of 13C and 16C currently.

There was more frost than usual in July in Auckland.
Grey Lynn average min was 7.1C, Max 15.1C.

the thickest fog here I have seen for ages....like pea soap.
July ended up being 0.4C above average here
whereas Ricky was -0.2C
and drier than normal too

I recorded an average low of 7.2C and average high 14.4C, very similar to July in recent years.
Rain total was 120 mm.

melja wrote:I dont think this weather system is packing as much punch as forecast on the west coast, my folks say its hardly rained with warm sun out a lot and its seems Hoki only had 5mm yesterday an 14mm the day before despite the forecast of heavy rain and thunderstorms for them.
Haast has only had 13, 27,13 and 7mm since the system started.

Warm over night here again with a low of 13C and 16C currently.

Severe floodign in Arthurs Pass, up to 245mm so far in the storm cycle, with a forecast 250mm more today. The mountains are taking a spring like hiding, rivers will be raging- certainly a no go zone for any tramping this weekend!

I was -0.2 below my norm too. So pretty much a normal month. 77mm so missing about 40mm of rain.

I just went back and counted days with a low below 0.0 up to July 31st. Its really quite variable.
2009 - 32
2010 - 11
2011 - 8
2012 - 23
2013 - 5
2014 - 10

Mean temp was 1.1C above my station's July average and the 31st set a new record high of 21.1C. Air frosts were recorded on 11 days which is about average.

Rainfall was 31.4mm (just over half of normal) on 14 days. That brings the YTD to 502.4mm.

Razor wrote:

melja wrote:I dont think this weather system is packing as much punch as forecast on the west coast, my folks say its hardly rained with warm sun out a lot and its seems Hoki only had 5mm yesterday an 14mm the day before despite the forecast of heavy rain and thunderstorms for them.
Haast has only had 13, 27,13 and 7mm since the system started.

Warm over night here again with a low of 13C and 16C currently.

Severe floodign in Arthurs Pass, up to 245mm so far in the storm cycle, with a forecast 250mm more today. The mountains are taking a spring like hiding, rivers will be raging- certainly a no go zone for any tramping this weekend!

Yes Razor made that decision last night, large creak to cross just at hut thats given trouble in the past.

melja wrote:

Razor wrote:Severe flooding in Arthurs Pass, up to 245mm so far in the storm cycle, with a forecast 250mm more today. The mountains are taking a spring like hiding, rivers will be raging- certainly a no go zone for any tramping this weekend!

Yes Razor made that decision last night, large creak to cross just at hut thats given trouble in the past.

Hate it when that happens. Plenty of places in the Canty foothills that are all weather back ups though

Canterbury foothills will not be a pleasant place tomorrow with a screaming northwester...

A fairly mild, dry and sunny July overall, the exceptions being some extreme rainfall in the Far North and Fiordland.
Some very preliminary July 2014 temp and rainfall figures for the main centres:
Worth noting that Kaikohe in the Far North recorded about 586mm this July (or 311% of normal), with 471mm of that falling in just 4 days.

We were in the only portion of the NI with subpar sunshine (despite a very bright start). A larger portion of the SI's SE was cloudier than normal. The rotten southerly spell in the middle third of the month locally gave an overall impression of below normal temperatures.

Here's NIWA's preliminary, 'July 2014 National Climate Summary'.

Near-normal July temperatures for most, with exceptional rainfall for Northland


The national average temp of 8.2C was 0.3C above normal.

The month's highest temp of 22.7C was recorded at Timaru on the 31st, and the lowest of -9.8C was recorded at Lake Tekapo on the 16th.

Lots of record or near record temps on the 31st.

When is winter coming? And that's not a stupid question...