A summer then...

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RWood
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A summer then...

Unread post by RWood »

In 1964/5 the SOI was in La Nina mode for winter & spring, went neutral late spring and summer, then sharply into El Nino for the rest of 1965. I paraphrase bits of the old Met Service monthly Gazette summaries here:

December was warm and humid, drier than normal over most of the South Island and a little wetter in much of the North Is. There was a cooler period from 18th-24th. Thunderstorm activity was "excessive" - Rolleston reporting 5 inches of rain in less than 3 hours on 21st. The holiday week 25-31 was settled nearly everywhere.

January 1965 was very warm, particularly in the south and west of the North Island, with a very high frequency of NE winds. Northland, Coromandel and parts of BOP were wet, the rest of the country a bit of a mixture. Again the thunderstorm activity was very high, Ashburton getting exceptionally heavy hail on 24th. The North Island was sunny apart from BOP-Taupo, with Wellington & Kapiti topping the list. Most of the South Is was unusually cloudy, notably in Central Otago and the MacKenzie where humidity was higher than usual.

Feb 1965 showed a sudden change to predominant SW flows, cool and cloudy except in some eastern places. Dry in places sheltered from the SW, except that an ex-tropical storm passed east of Auckland, BOP and Gisborne on 11th-12th, giving those areas high totals.

Perhaps this season will come to resemble this in some ways, at least for Dec-Jan.

The rest of 1965 was a cool unsettled year with a lot of SW airflows, and was particularly unpleasant in coastal Otago and Southland - can vouch for that from personal experience.
RWood
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Unread post by RWood »

Im meant to add that in Sydney in January 1965 persistent southerly winds kept the month's maximum temp. to only 27C!
Gary Roberts
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Re: A summer then...

Unread post by Gary Roberts »

RWood wrote:Most of the South Is was unusually cloudy, notably in Central Otago and the MacKenzie where humidity was higher than usual.

Perhaps this season will come to resemble this in some ways, at least for Dec-Jan.
So far you're spot on.
tich
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Unread post by tich »

Interestingly the previous summer (1963-64) was quite probably a strong El Nino one, with conditions very similar to summer 1982-83: with cooler than normal temperatures, and wet weather in the west and south of the South Island. January 1964 was particularly notable for strong westerlies, while February was more anticyclonic. The winter was also notable for persistent westerlies in July and August, but with significantly milder than normal temperatures. Coldest southerly outbreak was at the beginning of September, with unusually low and widespread snow in the central and eastern North Island. (somewhat similar to Winter 2005, with its very mild July and August, but very cold snowy blast in September)

According to NZ Gazette monthly notes, Winter 1965 was a cold one, at least from late June to early August, with much frost and snow.
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Michael
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Unread post by Michael »

I remember a summer in Wanganui so dry when I was very small pre 1966 but unsure what year...everything was dry and brown but the one I remember years given to was 73/74 I think and 77/78 were dry.
Gary Roberts
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Unread post by Gary Roberts »

tich wrote:Interestingly the previous summer (1963-64) was quite probably a strong El Nino one, with conditions very similar to summer 1982-83: with cooler than normal temperatures, and wet weather in the west and south of the South Island. January 1964 was particularly notable for strong westerlies, while February was more anticyclonic. The winter was also notable for persistent westerlies in July and August, but with significantly milder than normal temperatures. Coldest southerly outbreak was at the beginning of September, with unusually low and widespread snow in the central and eastern North Island. (somewhat similar to Winter 2005, with its very mild July and August, but very cold snowy blast in September)

According to NZ Gazette monthly notes, Winter 1965 was a cold one, at least from late June to early August, with much frost and snow.
I recall an Auckland summer, probably that of '83-'84, which was mostly fine but almost ruined by cold SWers. It may have been '82-'83 but I'm pretty certain it was the following year.
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Michael
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Unread post by Michael »

Yes 1982-83 was a windy summer but 83 in the latter part was beebop ie fine but cold and windy.the Xmas week then was SW but early was ne in dec.

I recall an Auckland summer, probably that of '83-'84, which was mostly fine but almost ruined by cold SWers. It may have been '82-'83 but I'm pretty certain it was the following year.
RWood
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Unread post by RWood »

Michael wrote:I remember a summer in Wanganui so dry when I was very small pre 1966 but unsure what year...everything was dry and brown but the one I remember years given to was 73/74 I think and 77/78 were dry.
Could have been 63/64 despite the cool start, but more likely 62/63.
77/78 summer definitely ended with dryness over a very large area - a great relief for many after a prolonged wet winter in '77. Jan '78 covered one of our best holiday breaks in Central Otago. Locally and in many places dry warm and sunny conditions lasted till about 10th April - then there was a prolonged spell of dull humid days with high rainfall over the next 3 weeks of a substantial part of NZ (I remember the April date when the weather turned because an international chess tournament organised by Murray Chandler was starting about then and I watched a lot of it)
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Michael
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Unread post by Michael »

Yes I often remember the weather at the time and by what the radio played at the time..it helps remember what years...ie heard Mull of Kintyre whe we had the good summer in 1978 and heard Up where we belong in the windy 83 summer for instance
RWood
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Unread post by RWood »

tich wrote:Interestingly the previous summer (1963-64) was quite probably a strong El Nino one, with conditions very similar to summer 1982-83: with cooler than normal temperatures, and wet weather in the west and south of the South Island. January 1964 was particularly notable for strong westerlies, while February was more anticyclonic. The winter was also notable for persistent westerlies in July and August, but with significantly milder than normal temperatures. Coldest southerly outbreak was at the beginning of September, with unusually low and widespread snow in the central and eastern North Island. (somewhat similar to Winter 2005, with its very mild July and August, but very cold snowy blast in September)

According to NZ Gazette monthly notes, Winter 1965 was a cold one, at least from late June to early August, with much frost and snow.
I was in Stewart Island for a week early in Jan 1964- overcast and rain or showers on 6 days, cloudy but clearing on the 7th as we were leaving. The pub. got a good workout! Invercargill had only 127 hrs of sun that month, near its low record. The odd thing about 1964 was that it was drier than normal over most of the South Is, even slightly so at Milford, with a record low 8.29in at Alexandra (only 6.59 in for the 12 months to Oct '64). There were power cuts due to low supply levels. Yet the year was also very cloudy and often unsettled in the SI - almost as if the weather systems were not energetic enough to provide good rainfalls.

Can recall skating near Alexandra on a freezing weekend in July 1965 with snow lying, no sun to warm things up. Wellington records would justify calling that July its "worst" in decades.
RWood
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Unread post by RWood »

Michael wrote:Yes I often remember the weather at the time and by what the radio played at the time..it helps remember what years...ie heard Mull of Kintyre whe we had the good summer in 1978 and heard Up where we belong in the windy 83 summer for instance
Yes - songs or events I find can be linked to the weather situations of the time.