WINTERY BLAST STARTING FRIDAY 8TH

[tich]

Hail and sleet again lashing central Chch, and still a bit of snow lying on the ground.
Trademe poster reports snow falling in Masterton - no wonder the Rimutaka Hill Rd has been closed.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

its snow only again here in halswell, quite heavy too!

[carrot]

Back to rain & 3 degrees. boring lol, Want snow and hail!

[Ryan Thomas]

Wow, 2.4 at Jeffs. Didn't seem to get much hail here

[Andy]

Another bleak weekend in ChCh, petty much over it. !

[Michael]

Another bleak weekend in ChCh, petty much over it. !

Join the Club,its standard what we had for Weeks.

[Wildland]

Just had a phone call from Dad. He lives in Porirua, just north of Wellington. There have been a few snow flurries at his place in the last half hour, he's about 25m above sea level overlooking Porirua Harbour. Nothing heavy but definitely snow.

We had sleet showers at Tawa (north of Wellington) between 10 and 11 this morning - quite a noticeable hissing sound as it passed through the native trees. Temperature was hovering around 5 degrees.

At the time the tui and blackbirds were scrapping over the native berries and they hooned off into the conifers where they sat glaring at each other under cover. Quite entertaining. The tui like buzzing about in fine misty rain but the sleet was obviously not a fun thing to be out and about in.

Keeping an eye on Colonial Knob. Nothing has settled on the ground there yet - as far as I can tell.
Sunny now and the temperature has rocketed up to a tropical 8.1 degrees.

[CHCH Weather Chaser]

does anyone get the impression that instead of the showers becoming more isolated its coming together more, its been sleeting here for the last 20 mins non stop. Forgetting about the snow, hail, sleet topic....we have actually had over 20mm today!

[gllitz]

The problem, especially tonight and tomorrow night, until things dry out will be the black ice...hope people are careful when driving!

[Ryan Thomas]

My Mum took this photo this morning, not sure what time.. Maybe around 8 or so

[Nev]

Another bleak weekend in ChCh, petty much over it. !

Join the Club,its standard what we had for Weeks.

Michael, perhaps I should remind you that Auckland was the sunniest and warmest of the 5 main centres last month and so far for August, only Hamilton has been sunnier (by about 5%)!

How about contributing something worthwhile, rather than just whinging at any given opportunity?

[Ryan Thomas]

Heres another, of next door mostly

[David]

Michael, perhaps I should remind you that Auckland was the sunniest and warmest of the 5 main centres last month and so far for August, only Hamilton has been sunnier (by about 5%)!

What he said does hold some truth - the last several consecutive weekends have been unsettled in Auckland. Although we may have been the sunniest center there certainly wasn't a great deal of sun on the Saturdays and Sundays of the month.

Recent weekends:

28/29 June had heavy showers and some thunder
5/6 July had heavy showers gusty winds and thunder, and was cold
12/13 July was wet on Saturday, but dry on Sunday
19/20 July had heavy showers and thunder and gusty winds
26/27 July was of course the bomb low, wet and windy on both days
2/3 August was showery particularly Sunday

Today has been wet also but tomorrow should be fantastic if the metservice is correct.
Quite nippy now with the southerly.

[Manukau heads obs]

blue skies just coming on to me here now David

[Nev]

What he said does hold some truth - the last several consecutive weekends have been unsettled in Auckland. Although we may have been the sunniest center there certainly wasn't a great deal of sun on the Saturdays and Sundays of the month.

Yes, but it's relative and it also hasn't exactly been a typical July. As you said, apart from the "bomb"*, weekends in Auckland have been a mixed bag ...

July Sunshine
05th, 1.3 hrs
06th, 5.3 hrs
12th, 0.0 hrs
13th, 8.1 hrs
19th, 2.6 hrs
20th, 3.5 hrs
26th, 0.0 hrs *
27th, 0.0 hrs *

August Sunshine
02nd, 0.3 hrs
03rd, 3.5 hrs

[RWood]

Over moderate timespans you can certainly get weekly cycles, but of course people forget when these favour the weekends and complain about the opposite cases. I analysed Kelburn daily stats (temp, rain, sun) for about 80 years of data. There was no significant inter-day variation in average values, hardly surprising.

[spwill]

Michael wrote,

Join the Club,its standard what we had for Weeks.

But much warmer up this way Michael and we have had the best of the sunshine.
Surprise us one day Micheal with a weather post thats not a whinge

The wintry blast here will be a dry cold night under clearing skies.

[Storm Struck]

I was in the wonderful snow in Christchurch at Tornadoman's place in Addington, good to see the snow falling early morning also did out here but didnt settle aparently.
Sure was some heavy grapel showers in town last night, just bucketing down and covering streets in minutes the same with today more grapel than hail most times.
Definatly see some more sleety showers here tonight, maybe some more flakes but it will only be very light as the temperature takes another dive for the evening.
Third dump of snow for the winter, not big but certainly one to go down in the weather books.
I am watching Thursday this week coming bit early yet i know, so lets get through this one first eh .
Cheers
Jason.

[melja]

Blue skies issued at 12:35pm. Must be confident as they are saying snow "to sea level and not "near sea level"

"Friday 80% 3-5 Cool/Cold Increasing SW Snow to Sea Level
Saturday 80% 5-10 Very Cold Strong SW Snow to Sea Level "

Tony's forecast on Monday was pretty much spot on to ...

Yes but then he changed it as the week went on but M/S did not.

[RWood]

It was bitingly cold here today, even after a few hours' sun. The sogginess is due to 870mm in the 5 months March-July - not a record, but the highest since the mid-70s for any 5-month period. A lack of drying westerlies has contributed to the wetness underfoot.

[gopolks]

We have been spoiled this winter, three snow falls!!!

Now its summer turn, for some hot hot weather!!!!!!

[Myself]

It was bitingly cold here today, even after a few hours' sun. The sogginess is due to 870mm in the 5 months March-July - not a record, but the highest since the mid-70s for any 5-month period. A lack of drying westerlies has contributed to the wetness underfoot.

It didn't feel particularly cold to me I must say, possibly because the sun makes such a big difference. I can sit comfortably in the sun even if it's only 6C and don't need to wrap up warm.
I noticed green areas around the city were fairly soggy but still I am impressed with how well Wellington handles heaps of rain, there is a relative lack of deep, boggy mud that plagues the UK.

[tich]

We have been spoiled this winter, three snow falls!!!

Ironically in a winter that has actually been milder than normal over NZ.

It was bitingly cold here today, even after a few hours' sun.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's some snow in Wellington's hilly suburbs this evening, as Kelburn was only 4C at 6pm. Still some sleety showers in Chch up to this evening, though the shower band has retreated coastward in the 6pm radar, only clipping the city and peninsula by now.

[mikestormchaser]

yes been another fab winters day oh the cold and the snow!! fantastic!! didnt take me long to get up once i heard it was snowing this morning at 8am
so third snow fall this year.. not bad, i think we have done rather well this winter, now bring on the storms this season!! thunder gods

[carrot]

This summer im hoping for hot sunny days, with a few good storms in between. Hope we dont get about 7 wet weekends in a row again this year