Is Weather cold in Wellington?

[Gavin]

Hiya, we moving to beautiful NZ, Wellington end of this month from sunny warm South Africa and by all accounts looking at the temperatures in Wellington it looks like there are no warm days - is this correct? Can anyone tell me if its warm, cold or moderate climate in Wellington... does it ever get warm there? I am all for a good rain shower now and again but please tell me we can expect some warm sunny weather too?

[jrj]

[Michael]

Southerlies/SSE are cold/damp in Wellington,Northerlies/NW are quite frequent but they get a lot of calm days especially in W or SW barometric flows and plenty of sun to go,NE are similar and can bring warm sunny weather in summer.Theres also fine/calm weather in switching from N to S flows though some can be brief periods.Wellington can reach 30°c on occasions.If its a SW flow across the country the NW will be a dry wind,if the NW is caused by a high moving off to the east then it can be windy and often wet.

[Razor]

We mustn't undersell the wind factor.... bring your lead-soled shoes

[spwill]

Wellington... does it ever get warm there?

NO, thats why they have the best cafes, so you can escape the cold.


Summer will bring the odd warm day.

[Nev]

Hi Gavin, Your questions are almost impossible to answer because the terms 'warm', 'cold' or 'sunny' are all relative. However, typical summer T-maxs range from 19°C to 24°C and yes, very seldom would they get above 30°C. Typical winter T-maxs range from 10°C to 14°C. Wellington averages 2090 hours of sunshine per year (1977-2006) and more recently is often the sunniest of the 5 main centres in NZ. 'Windy Wellington' is also windier than Cape Town and regarded as one of the windiest cities in the world (possibly the windiest), but again, that may be relative to where you live in the city.

How 'sunny and warm' is it in your part of South Africa?

[Myself]

Plenty of warm days from September till June. That is, if warm means 15C (which it quite often does to me).

[tgsnoopy]

Windy... Yep... Don't fly into that airport man... It's NASTY! (One of the worst 10 in the world I was told)

I wonder what ever happened to those runway extensions over those electric trolley bus wires they planned?

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Temperatures can be rather variable around the Wellington region. Upper Hutt get to 32C whilst Wellington is only about 25C on a warm sunny northely day.

JohnGaul
NZTS

[RWood]

Necessarily subjective. I'm in Brazil at present and the whole of Nz is "cold" (so was Buenos Aires at 8am a few days ago, only 7c). Temps in east central Brazil have ranged up to 35C until a couple of days ago, a decent thunderstorm yesterday late afternoon and evening. Auckland felt bloody cold on my outward trip last Sunday in the SWer (Wgton had a lovely Sunday).

Considering a good portion of S Africa gets over 3000 hrs of sun, places like Perth tend to be a more logical climatic choice for SA emigrants. NZ as a whole is colder, windier and much cloudier than SA. Wgton wind doesn't bother me, otherwise I would have left long ago. You would find among the "bigger" towns that Tauranga, Napier, Nelson and Blenheim would be a little closer to acceptable. But Wgton is a great little city and many who have initially cursed it end up staying for good.

[spwill]

RWood

Auckland felt bloody cold on my outward trip last Sunday in the SWer (Wgton had a lovely Sunday).

But you do agree that Auckland is much warmer than Wellington for most of the year no argument there I'm sure.
Occasionally Auckland is sunnier than Wellington or the sunshine difference between the two cities is small.

[RWood]

Don't worry, I'm just winding up you AUKs. I've already made my point about subjectivity. Good thunderstorm yesterday evening with some refreshing showers.