Hottest months in NZ 1934 and 1935

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janewaystv
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Hottest months in NZ 1934 and 1935

Unread post by janewaystv »

October 1934 was a very mild month with temperatures being well above average.

November 1934 was a remarkable month. It was almost continuously warm and resembled a summer rather than a spring month. There was little wind and sunshine was much above the average.It was the driest November experienced for many years, especially in the South Island.

December 1934 was even more remarkable than November. Not only was it the warmest December on record, but the average departures from normal over the country have never previously been equalled in any month. Again there was continuous warmth and an absence of wind. Many places had the greatest amount of sunshine ever recorded in December. Almost everywhere else the month was drier, even more so than last month.

January 1935 was the hottest ever experienced over the country.Rainfall was very much below the average over most of the country. Temperatures were well above the average with many days recording extremely high temperatures.

February 1935 saw temperatures well above average, however good rains terminated the drought which had been experienced in most districts.

March 1935 was a very satisfactory autumn month with continued warmth and lack of storms and strong winds.

April 1935 saw mild conditions prevailing and there was again an absence of severe storms.

May 1935 saw temperatures being below average, the 1st time in 6 months.
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Unread post by Andy »

Nice reading, keep them coming. :)
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Michael
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Unread post by Michael »

In most of our life time I reckon nothings beaten the outstanding summer of 1977-78 which it was summer from mid November to Mid April without significant rain
janewaystv
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1938

Unread post by janewaystv »

January 1938 was a very warm and humid month, with sunshine being more than the average. There were very few wet days and in the middle of the month there was a fortnight of brilliantly fine weather with little wind, with some very high temperatures recorded.

February 1938 regarding both temperature and humidity, resembled those of the tropics. In spite of the very humid conditions and lack of sunshine, the month was the hottest ever experienced with the mean temperature being about 5-6oF above normal.

March 1938 was a very warm month, the mean temperature being the highest experienced for a March month since records commenced in NZ. Sunshine was above average. There was extremely little storm activity, high pressure and anticyclonic weather predominating.

April 1938:- All previous April records for warmth were exceeded. In the NI and the west of the SI, mean temperatures were above average by 6oF to 8oF, elsewhere the departures averaged 3oF. Sunshine was well below average.

May 1938:- A very warm and extremely dry month. There was very little wind and no very cold days were recorded. On not more than 2 occassions previously has the mean temperature in May been so high. There was a lack of snow on the mountains. Anticyclonic conditions prevailed during most of the month particularly in the South Island with no storms of note. A drought that started in January 1938 in Otago and Southland contuined, with some very record low totals being recorded.

Thus the warm spell ended with June 1938 being colder than usual.
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Unread post by Manukau heads obs »

the 30's seemed to have seen lots of extreme weather.....
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Unread post by RWood »

January 1956 had many exceptional characteristics, and is still the hottest month ever for Central Otgao and some other parts of the south.

To be noted: April 1938 produced the disastrous "Anzac flood" in the Esk valley, and there was flooding in parts in February as well. Big La Nina of 1937-38 gave Southland and Otago unusually dry and sunny conditions, while most of Canterbury had a lot of cloudy drizzly easterly weather.

NZ temp series (140+ years) shows 1934-1935 to be the clear winner for summer heat - also for the "warm season' (Nov-Apr) record.

NB Michael: 1977-78 summer was much slower to start in the southern half of the country, though sunny in many places from October to 10th April (as per another post of mine). In Wellingotn when teh dry months started in January it was welcome relief from the wettest calendar year on record. I can recall some great holiday weather in Jan in Alex., which I recall every time I hear Fleetwood Mac's hit biggie (You make Loving Fun)
RWood
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Unread post by RWood »

janewaystv: You may be able to look up all of the "top dozen" - the summers in order 1st-12th were (Year of Jan/Feb given):

1935
1975
1938
1999
1986
1989
1971
1956
1998
1970
1962
1985
janewaystv
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Yearly summary for 1935

Unread post by janewaystv »

The summer of 1934-1935 was the hottest recorded ever. In the period from November 1934 to February 1935, there has previously been nothing comarable, and temperatures remained above normal during March and April 1935. Very dry conditions prevailed over most of the country until the end of January 1935. The drought was gradually broken in February 1935.
janewaystv
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Yearly summary for 1938

Unread post by janewaystv »

The outstanding feature of 1938 was the almost tropical conditions of warmth and humidity which prevailed from January to April. May was also very warm, but in contrast with the preceding months it was very dry. The only previous period experienced in NZ, since records began, comparable in warmth with the summer of 1937-1938 and the autumn of 1938 was the summer of 1934-1935. On the latter occasion the warm spell began earlier and was of shorter duration.

From the end of the 1st week in June 1938 until the beginning of August 1938, cold, wintry weather prevailed. In the southern half of the SI, the cold was very severe with eucalyptus-trees suffering much damage from the frequent and at times very severe frosts. July 1938 was the coldest ever recorded since records commenced, especially in Canterbury, Otago and Southland.

1938 was a very wet year especially from Hawkes Bay to East Cape, from the Bay of Plenty to Bay of Islands, including the Auckland region, northern Westland and Nelson. Less than average rainfall prevailed in southern Westland and Southland. A long period of dry weather that set over Southland in 1937, ended definitely in October 1938. The year was remarkable for the frequency of floods in Northland, Auckland and especially Hawkes Bay, in the latter they were very severe and the damage was of disastrous proportions.

On several occasions, particulary form the 15th to the 19th of February, sudden heavy rains occurred at many places in the NI, there was much flooding, particulary between Hawkes Bay and East Cape. The damage caused was very severe and at a workmen's camp in the Waiora district grave loss of life occurred.

December 1938 was a very unseasonable month-cold, wet conditions prevailing with strong winds predominating, with the central NI and southern half of the SI recording thier wettest December on record.
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Yearly Summary for 1930

Unread post by janewaystv »

Manukau heads observer wrote:the 30's seemed to have seen lots of extreme weather.....
1930 was remarkable for being one of the coldest and also one of the driest on record. 1902 was colder and 1884 along with 1912 were about equally cold, but in no other years, since 1864,have temperatures been so low. For the Dominion, possibly no year has been as dry as 1930. In the Canterbury and Otago regions, rainfall was normal, while in the NI, 1914 and 1919 were drier. It was in Westland that the deficiencies in 1930 were most marked.

There was a absence of westerly winds and a prevalance of southerly winds. Snow and hail were frequent, but not especially heavy.
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Unread post by RWood »

I doubt that the 30s were very special for "extremes" - a lot of study would be needed to assess that.
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Re: Yearly Summary for 1930

Unread post by RWood »

janewaystv wrote: 1930 was remarkable for being one of the coldest and also one of the driest on record. 1902 was colder and 1884 along with 1912 were about equally cold, but in no other years, since 1864,have temperatures been so low. For the Dominion, possibly no year has been as dry as 1930. In the Canterbury and Otago regions, rainfall was normal, while in the NI, 1914 and 1919 were drier. It was in Westland that the deficiencies in 1930 were most marked.

There was a absence of westerly winds and a prevalance of southerly winds. Snow and hail were frequent, but not especially heavy.
Makes it sound pretty bad - but it was sunny in many places, and in (eg) Wellington it had an unusually low wind run. Also the long anticyclonic spell from February till late June was very pleasant in many ways. Nelson had 2649 hours of sunshine. I have seen all these yearly reports in Yearbooks and Gazettes and "Statistics of New Zealand" pubs. and find their language to be both rather stuffy and a bit melodramatic at times. But there is plenty of detail in the monthly Gazette supplements, especially on the weather sequences. I used to look up some of these reports repeatedly to the point where I could remember the page numbers in the Gazette index. Perhaps did not have a life then?! :)
janewaystv
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Re: Yearly Summary for 1930

Unread post by janewaystv »

RWood wrote:
janewaystv wrote: 1930 was remarkable for being one of the coldest and also one of the driest on record. 1902 was colder and 1884 along with 1912 were about equally cold, but in no other years, since 1864,have temperatures been so low. For the Dominion, possibly no year has been as dry as 1930. In the Canterbury and Otago regions, rainfall was normal, while in the NI, 1914 and 1919 were drier. It was in Westland that the deficiencies in 1930 were most marked.

There was a absence of westerly winds and a prevalance of southerly winds. Snow and hail were frequent, but not especially heavy.
Makes it sound pretty bad - but it was sunny in many places, and in (eg) Wellington it had an unusually low wind run. Also the long anticyclonic spell from February till late June was very pleasant in many ways. Nelson had 2649 hours of sunshine. I have seen all these yearly reports in Yearbooks and Gazettes and "Statistics of New Zealand" pubs. and find their language to be both rather stuffy and a bit melodramatic at times. But there is plenty of detail in the monthly Gazette supplements, especially on the weather sequences. I used to look up some of these reports repeatedly to the point where I could remember the page numbers in the Gazette index. Perhaps did not have a life then?! :)
It was very sunny, but with very low temperatures though.
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Unread post by janewaystv »

If you ask me, from reading the weather summaries for NZ during the 1930s, it seems like that the early 1930s was colder than normal (1930 to 1933), 1934-1935 was warmer than average, 1936 was a cold year, 1937-1938 was warmer than normal and 1939 was colder than average, so it sort of looks like there were some extremes during the 1930s with warmth and coldness. February 1936 will be remembered for the damaging storms, floods and gale-force winds that occurred pratically over the whole of the Dominion.

Yes the language they used in those days is much different to what we use now those days, but I think the language of the 1930's was quite cute and certainly made us figure out how to spell the long words properly! ;) ;) (good practise for us young folk, hee hee).
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Unread post by janewaystv »

From reading the NZ weather summaries, it makes Australia sound like the Sahara Desert where nothing interesting (weather-wise) happens. LOL :) ;) .
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Unread post by RWood »

It would be fair to say that the 1940s had less variability of temperature - years were middling to colder overall. But there were plenty of events, including quite a number of damaging floods. There was also a lot of rainfall variability, especially in some parts of the South Island, with a "hydro drought" late in the 40s (1947-early 1948) which prompted more dam-building. Coming back to the 30s, the period 1930-1935 inclusive provided more sunshine for a 6-year span than in any succeeding period. If you have a look at the 1950s, especially the first half, you'll find a lot of "oohs and aahs" in the general commentary. One thing to note - sunshine averages compiled to 1950 originally contained a lot of pre-1930s data, much of which was not centrally checked, and much of it was "optimistic" or recorded in an unsatisfactory way (Napier in particular up to 1925 had some ridiculously high values reported by a loyal local). This is later reflected in a series of reports for the period 1948-1956 in particular which exaggerate the sunshine deficits, especially in the North Island. After appropriate readjustment 1930-35 looks even better in that respect!
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Unread post by janewaystv »

The weather summaries for 1939-1945 are quite short and doesnt explain all weather events that happened in greater detail, i think it was the paper-short years due to WW2?.

Its interesting to note that no hot summers were recorded during the 1940s, except that it was a quite sunny decade.

Some notes:-

February 1940 was very wet in Southland, in fact being the wettest month of any year since records commenced (they had presistent SW-W winds)
Homer Tunnel recorded 72.74 (1847.5mm) inches of rain, making this the highest ever monthly total to be recorded in NZ.
Record cold temperatures were experienced in Central Otago and Westland.

April 1940 was the coldest on record in NZ.

December 1940 was the cloudiest on record at many places.

August 1941 saw places in the Wellington and Canterbury districts having record high rainfall totals.

Very cold temperatures were experienced in December 1941, especially towards the end of the month.

May 1942 was a very cloudy month and saw many long-standing rainfall records being broken, in contrast to May 1942, June 1942 saw many places having thier driest June on record.

July 1942-November 1942 had mean temperatures being above the average.

May 1943 saw places in the south having thier coldest May on record.

August 1943 was the coldest on record at widely scattered places with southerly winds prevailing..

One of the wettest and cloudiest Septembers (1943) was experienced over the country except in Southland.

December 1944 was the coldest and cloudiest experienced for some years over the country.

July 1945 saw Canterbury having severely heavy snowfalls.

December 1945 was the coldest ever recorded in NZ.

New Plymouth in 1943 recorded 2393.7 hours for the year, making this the sunniest year there since records commenced.
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Unread post by RWood »

If you had access to NZ libraries you'd find that the combination of NZ Gazette supplements - monthly summaries - plus the NZ Yearbook - annual summaries - plus the then Met. Service's Met. Misc. Pub 109 (Meteorological observations for YYYY) - would have plenty of detail, even in the war years.

In the line of my comments about sunshine means, 1940 in fact was a very sunny year, probably top of the list, followed by 1950, though for a variety of reasons it's very hard to make valid intercomparisons for this parameter.

A good candidate for a "relatively" quiet year for weather would be 1950 -unusually high MSLPS associated with a longrunning La Nina, but not the "heat energy" of later high-MSLP years like (eg) 1985, 1999, 2001, 2003.
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Unread post by RWood »

PS - November 1946 was easily the coldest on record. MSLPs were unusually low in 1946, but some parts had a reasonably good year - eg Wellington.
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Unread post by Andy »

Cheers people - Great reading 8)
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Unread post by RWood »

Interesting, some of the records shattered since those palmy days....

12-month rainfall 18,442 mm at Cropp River (29/10/97 - 28/10/98)
calendar year rainfall 16,617 mm at Cropp River (1998)
calendar month rainfall 2,927 mm at Cropp River (Dec 1995)
24-hour rainfall 682 mm at Colliers Creek 21-22 Jan 1994
1-hour rainfall 109 mm at Leigh, 30 May 2001
Lowest 6-month rainfall 52 mm at Cape Campbell, Nov 2000 - April 2001 Lowest air temp. -21.6C at Ophir, 3 July 1995

..there are more of course

Note - Cropp River and Colliers Creek are in the Hokitika catchment. The Cropp site is at the appropriately-named "waterfall" (from the sky!)
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1946-1947

Unread post by janewaystv »

Jan-Feb 1946 saw dry, sunny weather over the country except in the south. Rainfall for Auckland and Hawkes Bay was negligible in amount, in those areas, the 5 month period from Otober 1945, was the driest for over 30 years. Bush-fires were widespread over the NI. Good rains came in March, ending the drought in Auckland and Hawkes Bay.

May 1946 was the warmest nationwide since May 1928, with winds from the E predominating.

July 1946 saw it being the warmest over the country since July 1917.

November 1946 saw even colder temperatures than October 1946, this was the coldest November recorded nationwide since records commenced.Frosts and hailstorms were frequent.

December 1946 had cool and cloudy weather.

March 1947 saw many places having record high sunshine totals due to fine weather predominating.

June 1947 saw the Wellington district having its wettest month in the past 50 years with a severe southerly storm particulary towards the end of the month.
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Unread post by RWood »

May be unable to check forum on some days - going on trip, but will try to keep up with things.
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Unread post by Flutterbye »

RWood wrote:May be unable to check forum on some days - going on trip, but will try to keep up with things.
You have a safe & very enjoyable holiday RWood :D
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Unread post by RWood »

Thanks F, I will try to put up some reports from the destinations... :)
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