General January weather

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Rather raw here now with a cold SW and moist drizzly showers coming through.
Down to 10.6C @ 6pm.

[melja]

Only 1mm here so now we are up to 10mm for the month so unless the next 4 days are very wet its going to be a very dry month.

[Richard]

Cloud still moving from the north yet its blowing its arse off from the SSW

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Rather cold now and down to 9.2C.
Raining nicely now and I did eat my hat.
It was a Morris dancing hat decorated with vegetables instead of flowers.

[Razor]

Blowing its guts out here that's for sure

[Storm Struck]

The usual pattern today by the looks with mid to south Canterbury getting the bulk of the rain, just 2.2mm so far here and looks like not much else will fall overnight maybe another few mils.
Which will not go down well with these incoming highs, it looks like February will be our settled month for summer just when everyone is back at work/school
The holidays are kind of at the wrong time here, I reackon a week and abit between xmas and new years then have a proper summer holiday in February for the kids and anyone who wants to take time off.
This is a much better time of the year for weather, America has their summer holidays in August which is their last month of summer why cant we? seems logical

[GreggWard]

Temperature rose this morning from 8C at 6am, to 17C at 8am and 23C at 10am. This coincided with a NE wind here in Palmy, which tends to be our Foehn wind.

[Razor]

Very wet here. 5mm past few minutes seems to be settling in going by the radar

[snowstormwatcher]

A welcome 9mm here yesterday, Bit of snow down to about 1500m on the mountains.

[RWood]

The usual pattern today by the looks with mid to south Canterbury getting the bulk of the rain, just 2.2mm so far here and looks like not much else will fall overnight maybe another few mils.
Which will not go down well with these incoming highs, it looks like February will be our settled month for summer just when everyone is back at work/school
The holidays are kind of at the wrong time here, I reackon a week and abit between xmas and new years then have a proper summer holiday in February for the kids and anyone who wants to take time off.
This is a much better time of the year for weather, America has their summer holidays in August which is their last month of summer why cant we? seems logical

Oh yes - short memories at work again!! Go back just 2 years to February 2012: "Extremely cloudy, and cool in eastern areas'" (NIWA)- an understatement if anything. A miserable apology for a summer month in an already poor summer, and the worst month of that summer as far as I am concerned. Even Blenheim had an abysmal total of just 139 hours of sunshine, with only 108 at Dunedin. Kelburn clocked up its lowest ever DFJ total of sun with a near-record low in the February, as well.

Oh and of course, good ol' Feb 2004 would easily take the prize for the worst summer month in recent decades ...
face it, we live in changeable maritime NZ. No guarantees for anything weather wise, except uncertainty.

[David]

My weather data flat-lined last night (something seems to have gone wrong with the port), been spending the last half hour trying to fix things up...

It got down to 12 this morning, not 17 like my site said earlier

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Cool day here with southerlies, clearing away nicely this afternoon.
If this scenario was in the middle of winter, it would of produced some snow, especially to some low levels in private parts

[melja]

Masterton was on 2C this morning
Was a story about mount hut skiing top to bottom on the mountain on Monday morning with 10cm falling there and the second time this January which they say is very rare.

[Razor]

Glorious morning here, a beaut day. I'm sorry to those bemoaning summer, it has seemed pretty decent to me, and I'm outside every day.

[Richard]

i'm certainly not bemoaning summer really, but i do like the long periods of hot days this area gets normally but have been lacking some what this summer for the fact that such periods enables my seed crops to some fantastic growth rates which helps make up for the shorter growing season experienced in this valley,just need an ridge of high airpressure or two to park over NZ for a while which looks on the cards over the next week.

[cantygal]

I agree with you Razor

Although it hasn't been overly hot we've had some very pleasant days in and around Kirwee. It's been a dry month overall with just 9mm here and plenty of sunshine in the main. It's been an average to slightly above average summer in this part of Canterbury

PS It's looks like it's set to warm up over the next few weeks.

[David]

It's felt more like Spring here the last 2 days.
Roll on next summer

[spwill]

The niwa climate maps give a rough guide, http://www.niwa.co.nz/climate/daily-climate-maps

More wind and less humidity than normal has helped give January a cooler feel here. It has been dry.
Feb/Mar are very much warm season so plenty of Summer still to come

[Manukau heads obs]

Canty might have had an OK summer, being sheltered from the SW to WSW winds that have prevailed
but I bet you ask someone from southland what the summer has been like so far...
(but this big fat high we have now is a pattern changer )

[Tornado Tim]

Any blocking high that we get will increase out likelihood of drought here.... Because when the blocking high leaves another will come into place....
So for Waikato, I don't want any Blocking highs....

[melja]

And those NIWA maps are showing much of the country below average with some places over 2C below normal.

[Manukau heads obs]

yes, running 1.5C colder here than average for last 10 years
only made it to 18.3C here today with the cool southerly

[Razor]

Canty might have had an OK summer, being sheltered from the SW to WSW winds that have prevailed
but I bet you ask someone from southland what the summer has been like so far...
(but this big fat high we have now is a pattern changer )

I've had a couple of weeks on the west coast in the last month too, and its been pretty decent over there.

[melja]

My folks live on the coast and its been a much cooler summer than normal and wet too, no swimming in lakes or river this year over there.
Rainfall looks to be running around 120-140% of normal with temps 2C below but has been sunny as well.

[tunster]

Any blocking high that we get will increase out likelihood of drought here.... Because when the blocking high leaves another will come into place....
So for Waikato, I don't want any Blocking highs....

"Blocking High" is overused, the high in the Tasman now is not really a block, just a standard summer fare high, with a replacement high likely to follow behind the weakening trough at the end of the week.