NIWA January summary

[RWood]

Very impressive for dryness and southern sunshine, Ch'ch and Wellington temperature departures not very special (e.g. Feb 2005 was 0.7C warmer at Kelburn and Feb 1998 2.0C warmer). Feb. rains really needed in many parts.

Exceptional sunshine at Dunedin and Invercargill (esp.), Tekapo reporting 308 hrs. I would expect Cromwell value to be similar.

http://www.niwa.cri.nz/__data/assets/pd ... 801sum.pdf

[David]

I'm surprised Auckland supposedly had near normal sunshine hours for January, I thought we would have had a higher total than normal. But that could have been because January had a tendency to have either 'mainly sunny' or 'mainly cloudy' days rather than many days with a mix of sun/cloud. Either that, or I took more notice of the sunny days

[janewaystv]

Still a good total David, perhaps it would be a idea for several sunshine recorders to be set up around the metro area - current one is done at the Airport & Whenuapai (?) - get one set up on the Nth Shore & eastern Auckland - why dont you get one set up at your place? as judging by other Aucklander's reports, it seems one area is sunny whereas another is partly cloudy and so on.

Temps for Auckland were more than 1.3oC above average, same can't be said for here (min. temps a different story however), as you remember a few weeks back when I was in Auckland, I stayed at Kumeu at a mate's place on a farm, he has recently told me that the water in the tanks has totally run empty, so he's been forced to truck in more water at a considerable cost for his livestock, he and family now have showers and do laundry at his parents home in the suburbs - sounds pretty bad, we must have arrived at the start of the "drought" in December , he also said his farm is so brown.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Where's Waione?

JohnGaul
NZTS

[Ryan Thomas]

Geez Alexandra.. And not even its record..

[RWood]

Alexandra's record hot month was January 1956, still the hottest on record for a large part of Southland and Otago. The period from the 10th-21st of that month was quite remarkable. If you search the archives you'll find a post giving the details of max/min for that month there.

[Andy]

Alexandra's record hot month was January 1956, still the hottest on record for a large part of Southland and Otago. The period from the 10th-21st of that month was quite remarkable. If you search the archives you'll find a post giving the details of max/min for that month there.
Alexandra's record hot month was January 1956, still the hottest on record for a large part of Southland and Otago. The period from the 10th-21st of that month was quite remarkable. If you search the archives you'll find a post giving the details of max/min for that month there.

Hey couldn't find any info, can someone post it.

[RWood]

Can't find it, but will repost the numbers later today.

[Ryan Thomas]

I had a look too and couldn't find it , hopefully you do post it

[David]

Here is RWood's original post on the subject: (More effort people! It was easy to find!)
I've added in the celsius conversions.

Delving back into some history - given the possibility of a La Nina maturing - Jan 1956 was exceptionally warm, and for Central Otago and some of Canterbury it's still the warmest month on record. The most notable part of the month was 10th-21st (BTW this was all during a La Nina event of quite long duration). Courtesy of Jolyon Manning of Bridge Hill, Alexandra, these were the official daily max. readings in Alex. at the time (sorry, haven't bothered to convert to deg C!)

Day Max(F)
10 92.8 (33.8C)
11 92.0 (33.3C)
12 91.8 (33.2C)
13 92.2 (33.4C)
14 86.9 (30.5C)
15 89.0 (31.7C)
16 92.3 (33.5C)
17 75.2 (24.0C)
18 83.0 (28.3C)
19 89.0 (31.7C)
20 97.3 (36.3C)
21 99.0 (37.2C)

Mean daily max for the month was 83.5F (28.6C). Ashburton had 101.2 (38.4C).
on 19th but a lower avg. daily max for the month. Cromwell's numbers were similar to those of Alex.

Things weren't so great for holidaymakers in the north (though very warm).

[RWood]

Interesting - I listed my posts last night, put in a simple search argument and couldn't find this! May have been tired.

Anyway, by comparison with Jan '56, mean daily max. in Alex was only 0.2C lower, but mean Tmin was much lower (by 2.8C), and overall mean 1.5C-1.6C lower.

The period 10-21 of that month in Central Otago and some of the east was certainly the hottest of comparable length in NZ's climate history.