NZ Weather Forum

Can anyone please explain about the Timaru Aerodrome readings and the Timaru Gardens?

I have watched the Aerodrome ones reasonably closely but they seem to read a little too high? Yesterday was another example when northwesters saw 18 degrees and the previous day it was 17 apparently and yet no other centres were within a degree or maybe 2.

I noticed last summer it clocked 40 at the Airport but the Gardens were 41.3 so there goes my theory perhaps?

Ive often found that when the northwesterly does reach the Canterbury coast Timaru is always the warmest mainly due to being downwind from the highest part of the Southern Alps.
I was in Timaru yesterday and defenitly felt warm would have been 18 degrees or close to it.

One thing that annoys me though is that the readings that are shown on TV are taken at the airport which is different climate than in town. In summer the max in town can be up to 5-6 degrees colder with the easterly while the airport has a NW or no wind. The reverse applies in winter then town can be 4-5 degrees warmer at night time with a light breeze while the airport has a frost.

one valid comment might be that , how many people live at the airport
i.e is that really a representative reading to use to show the temperture for Timaru
maybe not

Temperatures should be, must, be recorded where the people are, not out at locations away from populated areas, where such a recording is made.
Surely in this day and age, official min and max recordings can be recorded in a town/city rather than from where their airport is.
Kaikoura temps used to be recorded on the Peninsula, Oamaru from way out there at Hilderthopre, Dunedin from Momona
Places like 'Gore Aerodrome', where the hell is that?
There must be others.

JohnGaul
NZThS

The Gore Aerodrome is the Gore Airport at Charlton....its about 8km's from Gore

Manukau heads obs wrote:one valid comment might be that , how many people live at the airport
i.e is that really a representative reading to use to show the temperture for Timaru
maybe not

Yes this also applies to Hamilton's situation too, Hamilton Airport is actually a fair bit away from Hamilton itself.

They should be using the Ruakura Weather Station (Ham East) for a better representation of Hamilton's Weather.

You guys are gonna love these claims in this morn's Timaru Herald...

'Cold snap brings near-record low temp' - Stuff
Last updated 05:00 02/08/2011

Last week's cold snap has seen Timaru record its second lowest temperature for July since records began in 1906. On July 26, the minimum air temperature recorded in Timaru was -7.8 degrees Celsius. It was also the fourth-lowest minimum temperature for any month since 1906, according to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa)....
(more...)

What the above story doesn't say is that all the figures quoted are for Timaru Aero, where full temp records didn't begin until 1962, and that that site generally sees more extreme temps and a lower average July mean-temp than the older Timaru Gardens site.

Timaru Gardens only got down to -5.3C last month on the 26th, making it the 10th lowest July temp there (16th overall) since 1906. Timaru Gardens lowest ever temp of -6.8C was recorded in June 1941 and its lowest ever July temp was -6.4C in 1938. Also worth noting is that during the winter of 1938, Timaru Gardens recorded temps of around -6C six times, so I wonder what temps at Timaru Aero would've been like then?

Nev wrote:You guys are gonna love these claims in this morn's Timaru Herald...

'Cold snap brings near-record low temp' - Stuff
Last updated 05:00 02/08/2011

Last week's cold snap has seen Timaru record its second lowest temperature for July since records began in 1906. On July 26, the minimum air temperature recorded in Timaru was -7.8 degrees Celsius. It was also the fourth-lowest minimum temperature for any month since 1906, according to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa)....
(more...)

What the above story doesn't say is that all the figures quoted are for Timaru Aero, where full temp records didn't begin until 1962, and that that site generally sees more extreme temps and a lower average July mean-temp than the older Timaru Gardens site.

Timaru Gardens only got down to -5.3C last month on the 26th, making it the 10th lowest July temp there (16th overall) since 1906. Timaru Gardens lowest ever temp of -6.8C was recorded in June 1941 and its lowest ever July temp was -6.4C in 1938. Also worth noting is that during the winter of 1938, Timaru Gardens recorded temps of around -6C six times, so I wonder what temps at Timaru Aero would've been like then?

Perhaps you should become the papers editor Nev. Your good at busting their myths they keep putting out there.

Their reporting lately has been shocking with these sorts of details. Not just the herald too. You have found it with most papers

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:Temperatures should be, must, be recorded where the people are, not out at locations away from populated areas, where such a recording is made.
Surely in this day and age, official min and max recordings can be recorded in a town/city rather than from where their airport is.
Kaikoura temps used to be recorded on the Peninsula, Oamaru from way out there at Hilderthopre, Dunedin from Momona
JohnGaul
NZThS

First find "reasonable" sites in built-up areas that aren't hopelessly compromised by buildings and tarmac. As a matter of fact, NIWA's monthly summary reports for Dunedin always quote Musselburgh, which actually flatters Dunedin because of its high night minima, as I have already noted here previously. Ch'ch still has its Gardens site, and the differences with the Aero are pretty consistent over a long timespan, so getting a reasonable number for the urban area is not hard. Re Oamaru, previous records indicate a difference of about 0.6C-0.8C between airport and town area.

What one does not want is the idiotic "city stakes" contests where the spruikers try to outdo each other by finding the warmest "sites" possible - and furthermore, the unstated assumption is that temperatures are all that matter - certainly not to me! Rainfall and sunshine count for far more with me, given NZ's smallish daily and annual temperature ranges.

Rainfall and sunshine count for far more with me,

note that everyone interests are different
some people are more interested in temperatures than sunshine hours, for example
every one to their own I say...

Manukau heads obs wrote:

Rainfall and sunshine count for far more with me,

note that everyone interests are different
some people are more interested in temperatures than sunshine hours, for example
every one to their own I say...

Obviously ...the point is that temperatures get nearly all the attention. Vastly more effort has been expended, Whakatane notwithstanding, in trying to establish that someone's little slice of paradise is warmer than it really is...from one end of the country to the other.

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:Temperatures should be, must, be recorded where the people are, not out at locations away from populated areas, where such a recording is made.
Surely in this day and age, official min and max recordings can be recorded in a town/city rather than from where their airport is.
Kaikoura temps used to be recorded on the Peninsula, Oamaru from way out there at Hilderthopre, Dunedin from Momona
Places like 'Gore Aerodrome', where the hell is that?
There must be others.

JohnGaul
NZThS

They still must use it because when ever they have Kaikoura on TV1weather they always have the town above at least 3C overnight lows,a friend of mine lives 100m west of the overhead railway bridge by SH1,he often gets frosts where he is.