NZ/Aust Weather Comparisons

Archive of NZ Weather & Climate
Forum rules
These topics are a read-only archive and may be subject to out-of-date information.

For today's weather discussion head to: New Zealand Weather & Climate
RWood
Posts: 3745
Joined: Sat 24/01/2004 16:56
Location: Wellington
Has thanked: 188 times
Been thanked: 123 times

Unread post by RWood »

janewaystv wrote:
RWood wrote:Where did you get the Wellington rainfall data from originally?
It was in the book in handwritten form - however I asked my grandmother this morning she said my grandfather got them from someone at NIWA in 1995 (with updated data to end 2000) - this discovery throws a new light on "obtaining data for payment" because my grandmother said he got them for "free", and he should have the orginial sheets (as given to him by NIWA) somewhere in the box, so I delved (deeper this time :oops: ) in the box and found them in a plastic sheet hidden in a scrap-book which I hadnt looked at before - wow - I couldnt believe it because it contains all data for AKL, WGT, CHC, DUD and IVC dating back to when they first started measuring at those sites. They come in printed form (with punch-holes on either side), my grandfather didnt want to paste them in the book and couldnt use a PC so he wrote them (Not all though) down on sheets of lined A4 papers (Must have taken him a long time !). Judging by what was entered in the book - it seems that my grandfather was mainly focused on rainfall and sunshine stats.

Looked at the Wellington rainfall data (Orginial sheets) - it all comes under the heading "Kelburn" from 1862 onwards, however still no mention of Mt Cook and Thorndon sites, so I'll take your word for it :) (Note the station number for Kelburn is E14272).

With Wellington's mean air temp stats. - very interesting because I have them in the orginial printed sheets from NIWA (My grandfather didnt write them down) and I didnt even know about them until this morning when I found as mentioned above - an unexpected bonus :mrgreen: so the sites are as following:-

Knowles Ob 1862 - 1868

Bowen St 1868 - 1869

Bolton Street Cemetery 1869 - 1906

Buckle Street 1906 - 1912

Thorndon 1912 - 1927

Kelburn 1928 - current

In regards to prior conversations about "WGT Rainfall Data and Sites" - Would I be right in assuming that "Buckle Street" is also referred to as Mt Cook" ? as the year mentioned match those of Mt Cook.

With extreme T-max & T-min air temps they are however all under Kelburn from 1869 to end 1998.

Now Im getting a bit confused (Again!) because as you said before all records post 1928 are from Kelburn and pre- 1928 from Mt Cook and Thorndon. Looks like we'll have to trash out some of the "sites & years " issues in good faith :lol: .
Kelburn site was brand-new in 1928, so all temp. records would be from the places you listed above. The first 3 are all in the Thorndon area, and Buckle St is in Mt Cook (goes past the old Museum).

Now for rainfall I'm not sure where the pre-1906 records were from, probably the same as the temperature ones. My view is that for temp. and rainfall purposes all the pre-Kelburn sites would be pretty similar.
What I can do is go to our library and look the old reports in "Statistics of New Zealand" whose meteorological section had a few pages per year with summary tables from the handful of locations operating in those days.

(From 1928, the information was moved to the newly-created NZ Met. Misc. Pub. 109 [Meteorological Observations for 19xx] that you've seen me refer to in some posts.)
RWood
Posts: 3745
Joined: Sat 24/01/2004 16:56
Location: Wellington
Has thanked: 188 times
Been thanked: 123 times

Unread post by RWood »

janewaystv wrote:
RWood wrote:Here's a couple of reports and a workbook for you.

Oops - added one to the wrong post, but they're all there.
Thanks for that :D

Had a quick glance - certainly makes IVC (And Oz especially) look very sunny but given its size, latitude and location - to be expected really. 1943 is an exception - 5 of the sunniest months recorded during that year.

They dont record data anymore now ? As data is up to 1995.

;)
Campbell switched to an AWS around 1995 - saves the cost of keeping teams of people there I guess. Don't know if it would be practical or even possible to try and set up sunshine recording there in those circumstances. An old article from Met. Service said the island "contributed to its own cloudiness" by uplift over its landmass. In a stormy location, only about 1.6 or 1.7 hrs was recorded in June 1973 [though the June recordable at the site was only about 106 with low sun angles]. You'd think the cloud deck would be disturbed more than that. The same article (written in the 1960s) noted that one day in Feb. 1959(? or maybe 1960)? they had about 12 hours' sun and explained why the day was quite atypical. I'm sure there are even cloudier spots in the southern ocean, but too few islands to put equipment on! Not sure about the subartic zones in the other hemisphere.

With its wildlife it would be quite an interesting place for a quick visit.
Last edited by RWood on Sat 02/06/2007 16:35, edited 1 time in total.
RWood
Posts: 3745
Joined: Sat 24/01/2004 16:56
Location: Wellington
Has thanked: 188 times
Been thanked: 123 times

Unread post by RWood »

Re Wellington sites: went to the library (after the sun disappeared! :) ).
The old pubs. (Gazette and "Statistics") weren't all that helpful, but can confirm the following:

Thorndon site (Sydney St) started July 1912 (not June as I said earlier). It was 10 feet (3 m) ASL. Previous entry for June 1912 stated obs. height as 110 ft ASL.

Cannot confirm the earlier locations you had, but they should be correct. There is a reference to a site change on 1 November 1868, to the Museum grounds (which were in Thorndon at the time I think - this presumably would be the shift from Bowen St to Bolton St) at 110 ft ASL, previous place being at 140 ASL. Both of these streets have a wide range of altitudes. I don't know where the Knowles observatory was, except thta it was at 90 feet ASL.

So my statement that pre-1906 records were from Buckle St is wrong - I was confused by the references to the Museum, which has been moved around a bit and wasn't in Mt Cook until about 1932.

I do know that NIWA has a composite temperature record for Wellington based on all the sites, as it is one of the 7 indicator records used to construct a national average in the temperature series which goes back to the 1850s. I don't have any temp. data prior to Kelburn. I think I requested the pre-1928 rainfall data from NIWA, and don't know whether it is raw data or an adjusted ensemble. I think in any event the pre-Kelburn rain data profiles would be pretty similar for the old sites.

That's about all I can figure out!
janewaystv
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu 06/04/2006 01:23
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Unread post by janewaystv »

Right I see - that has helped clear up most of the confusions I had - thanks :D .

I was going to separate the temps. records but I wont now. You're correct - Sydney St, Thorndon measurements started in July 1912. What I think was they put them all together (although under different sites) for composite purposes - they dont seem to show much difference really.

Bowen St only recorded temps for a year from Nov. 1868 to Oct. 1869 then recording temp. data at Bolton St Cemetry from Nov. 1869 until May 1906 then recording from Buckle St from June 1906 to June 1912.

As for rainfall - whats what I pretty much thought. If you want I can put it down for you to download and compare?. Judging from what you've told me - I think the rainfall data was measured at earlier sites prior to Jan 1928 (Kelburn) & they have been put together as "one" site (May have to ask NIWA why this has occurred).

As for the sunshine - I thought they started recording in the late 20s/early 30s, but as I said before in a prev. post ages ago - I have some sunshine data from 1907 - 1914 (Appeared in the 1914 NZ weather summary) in the form of a table, I wasnt sure whenether to put them in the database as you mentioned they werent verified & very doubtful due to the type of equipment used at the time.
RWood
Posts: 3745
Joined: Sat 24/01/2004 16:56
Location: Wellington
Has thanked: 188 times
Been thanked: 123 times

Unread post by RWood »

Did I not give you the sunshine data 1906-1927 at some point during this thread's lifetime? Apart from the suspicion that Thorndon (7/1912-12/1927) was a little lower (ie a more restricted horizon) than Kelburn or the Buckle site, I don't think that data's too bad, don't know what instrumentation they used for it. I think that as W'gton was the capital and the top experts of the day were mainly based there, more care was taken with its data. On the other hand many other NZs sites' pre-1930 data looks doubtful to me, with eg Napier pre-1925 being completely unreal, In'gill, Nelson (pre-1922) and Dunedin too erratic, etc. etc.

Yes, if you posted the pre-1928 rainfall you have I could see how the numbers tally, thanks. :)
janewaystv
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu 06/04/2006 01:23
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Unread post by janewaystv »

Yes you did - I forgot about that :oops:, now that you mention it - I'll put it in my database (Pre 1928 sunshine records for WGT only that is).

Here is the WGT Rainfall data from Kelburn 1862.
RWood
Posts: 3745
Joined: Sat 24/01/2004 16:56
Location: Wellington
Has thanked: 188 times
Been thanked: 123 times

Unread post by RWood »

Thanks for that, I'll get back on the data comparison a little later. :)
RWood
Posts: 3745
Joined: Sat 24/01/2004 16:56
Location: Wellington
Has thanked: 188 times
Been thanked: 123 times

Unread post by RWood »

For the old data, there are a few discrepancies, for these months. [ Haven't decided whether I'll change mine to your values - there could have been mistakes made in conversion to metric by Met/NIWA in a few cases, and I can't remember where I got my numbers from now. Only in the case of July 1912 (15mm difference) is there a big discrepancy].

Aug-Nov 1862, June 1884, October 1887, July 1912.

However for Kelburn 2005 there is an issue. An AWS at the same place started in Jan 2005 for everything except sunshine recording. The manual site closed (except for sunshine) at the end of October 2005. For the period of overlap the AWS rainfall values appeared to be about 3-4% or so higher - temps. looked pretty much identical.

Manual 2005 values: (Jan-Oct)

85.1 43.2 142 44 176.8 49.3 112.7 29.7 45.5 73.4

AWS values for 2005:

86.2 44.4 150.2 46.7 189.2 54.6 117.8 31.4 50.4 83.2 44.8 76.4 total = 975.3

I checked this carefully with a NIWA scientist so I'm certain of these values.

The summary I got for 2006 (AWS of course) has May 2006 as 112mm (not 107), giving a yearly total of 1579. This should be correct.
janewaystv
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu 06/04/2006 01:23
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: NZ/Aust Weather Comparisons

Unread post by janewaystv »

See this BOM report for more info re record "August" rains in Queensland (mainly the Sunshine Coast - some amazing totals for August :o :) - have a cousin living at Caloundra and a mate at Noosa - lucky buggers :lol:

http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/f ... t_2007.pdf
Locked