General January Weather

[spwill]

A change to a more westerly pattern for the first week of January so generally much better weather across NZ. May see a return to rainy weather 2nd week of January.

[Richard]

Looking out on the first sunrise of 2012 through a thin fog bank and broken high cloud above,will be nice to have some sun today after that good resent rain,currently 6deg.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Happy New Year everyone
Yes, nice to have a sunny morning with some nice Cirrus uncinus above. Tomorrow looks like rubbish thou'

[Orion]

Happy New Year to all.
A pleasant day here. partly cloudy, 6.1 deg. at around 4.30am, then temp. rose & was held at 26.5 degrees by a refreshing southeasterly breeze. Very nice.
Now it's veered more southerly for the last half-hour or so and temp. down to 24.2 deg. with cloud increasing.

[melja]

Cracker day down at the lakes with next to no wind and a high of 33C in the camp but a little cooler out in the open.

[spwill]

The Lakes area down south has done very well for weather this holiday period. I can recall camping at Lake Hawea in the early eighties and having cold showers + hail much of the Xmas to New Year period.

A very small temperature range here for the last few days with the very humid cloudy weather, min 19C max 22C today.

[snowstormwatcher]

Low cloud and drizzle here now after a Fine day. High of 24 degrees. Currently 12.

[RWood]

The Lakes area down south has done very well for weather this holiday period. I can recall camping at Lake Hawea in the early eighties and having cold showers + hail much of the Xmas to New Year period.

A very small temperature range here for the last few days with the very humid cloudy weather, min 19C max 22C today.

This December has been bizarre in terms of contrasting rainfall and (particularly) cloud/sunshine anomalies, and for the latter I would rate it as probably the most extreme of its type since January 1956.

It has been less so with temperatures, thought the charts at Climate Explorer show the SW quadrant of the South Island as more than 2.0C above average, with a deficit of over 1.0C in part of Hawkes Bay -

(to see a graph, go to https://secure.niwa.co.nz/climate-explorer/home.do , choose National as the selection level, go to Temperature maps, Month to date and view the entry for 20120101; if this gets removed on the 2nd , then look at the latest entry in Temperature maps, Monthly mean).

Rainfalls totals were above average for almost the entire country north of a line from Ashburton to Westport, with Takaka (Kotinga) getting about 700% of its average amount, while most of Otago and Southland had less than 20% of average, a few parts there not even managing 10%. A chart for this can be found in a similar way to that used for temperatures.

Sunshine readings for the month (provisional) made a nonsense of some of the normal relationships between sites. This list of totals has colour codings for those entries substantially different from normal (red=above, blue=below, bold for extreme cases):

Tekapo 266.7 Invercargill 250.9 (2nd highest on record) Dunedin 221.1 Akaroa 210.4 Mt Cook 210.1 Hokitika 204.4 Paraparaumu 203.0 Appleby, Nelson 195.8 Franz Josef 195.7 Whakatane 191.3 Christchurch 186 (31st entry late, estimated) Wellington 174.4 Blenheim 167.0 (record low) Waipawa 161.2 Kaitaia 142 (31st estimated) Hamilton 135.7 (lowest on record) Mangere, Auckland 132.0 (ditto) Dargaville 124.3.

Up to date records for Napier, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Alexandra and Queenstown are not available on CliFlo yet, but the last 2 should later show large surpluses for the month, while the site at Cromwell would probably have been close to 300 hours if the EWS were working.

Central Otago has not always had such a favourable early summer (or whole summer) response to La Nina situations. The current season, if continued, may be somewhat like 1937-38, when from October to March very dry and usually sunny conditions prevailed there apart from December, which was rather cloudy.

On the other hand, the La Nina of 1964-65, which ended after summer, was cloudy and humid in Central for December and January, particularly the latter, and conditions were much better in the North Island. A cool cloudy February dominated by southwesterlies made the summer overall rather poor for almost the entire South Island. rticularly January:

For central New Zealand, this December has been vastly different from Decemebr 1988, when a strong La Nina event was well underway. That month was warm, dry and very sunny for Wellington, Nelson and Blenheim, to cite 3 examples.

[RWood]

Trying to edit in the "colour" for this copied text was a nightmare, so I gave up on that.

Note: data from NIWA's CliFlo database.

[NZstorm]

Looks like the overcast pattern continues for Auckland for 2 or 3 more days yet. Certainly been the grey start to summer.

Thanks for the report RWood.

[Michael]

Sun is streaming in Wanganui today after a dull new year,no wind either looks though its up my way though.

[Tornado Tim]

Overcast once again with some light showers overnight. Hopefully this dull weather goes away soon.
If its overcast it might as well be raining....
Thanks for the report Rupert, much appreciated

[RWood]

Overcast once again with some light showers overnight. Hopefully this dull weather goes away soon.
If its overcast it might as well be raining....
Thanks for the report Rupert, much appreciated

You're welcome folks. Off visiting in the Wairarapa today - looks dry here at present, don't know if there will be much sun.

[spwill]

I see in December New Plymouth had 230hrs a real contrast to Mangere, Auckland with just 132, both west coast locations but Auckland is much more exposed to the northeast also the Auckland seabreeze convergence has been active this summer after two very quiet summers. Upper levels in the atmosphere have been cooler.

[RWood]

I see in December New Plymouth had 230hrs a real contrast to Mangere, Auckland with just 132, both west coast locations but Auckland is much more exposed to the northeast also the Auckland seabreeze convergence has been active this summer after two very quiet summers. Upper levels in the atmosphere have been cooler.

CliFlo doesn't have either NP site (includes new AWS sun data) up to date yet - the paper where you read this (?Herald?) must have a direct source from MetService (value will be provisional).

Point well taken though. NP is the sunniest location on NZ's western flanks, with the average for 1981-2010 almost 2200. Last season (Dec-Jan that is) was another "failed" la Nina for Wellington - lowish sun totals in both months.

[David]

Feels like we have stepped a couple of months back into Spring today. Overcast 18C and windy...

[Manukau heads obs]

agree
I am surprised the cloud cover has not cleared yet
must be a strong inversion

[Manukau heads obs]

looks like an easterly surge for the Auckland area tomorrow morning with a few showes around?

[NZstorm]

looks like an easterly surge for the Auckland area tomorrow morning with a few showes around?

Yes, conditions favorable for anticyclonic gloom with drizzly showers.

[mikestormchaser]

Happy new year all and may this year bring more thunderstorms for all and snow

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Happy new year all and may this year bring more thunderstorms for all and snow

Dosen't look like it Need a change of weather systems

[Thunder]

I find lightning information quite interesting for finding out how many strikes there were and where exactly things are happening although with the radar the way it is now I don't feel a huge need for futher information while in the field, but if it's there no doubt it will add to the storm chasers arsenal of information and naturally I'd use it to.

Yes Mike really do need a change although there have been a few storms about Canterbury so far this summer. Going over previous events El Nino really is the one for us with so many more oppertunities generally.

Cheers
Aaron

[Richard]

Cold start here this morning on 4deg but at least the sky is clear for a change,so a big temp range on the cards today

[spwill]

Cloudy 17C start, had a very nice day yesterday for a change.

Looks like the wet unstable E/NE flow will return from this weekend, Gisborne most in the firing line for some heavy rain.

[David]

Hmmm the weather has really deteriorated here with frequent drizzle showers