General April Weather

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NZstorm
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by NZstorm »

shovelopikis wrote: No doubt about that, but its more of how severe warnings were out where the bulk of the strikes (estimating a good 80%) were in squalls off shore

are winter TS harder to pinpoint in compared to summer convergence in NZ?
The summer ts can be harder to forecast as you are needing the convective temperature to be met by heating. Some cloud cover can throw a convective forecast out in summer.
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by David »

Lovely day here, sunny 19C with hardly any wind.

By the way, for iPhone/ipad owners, there's a lightning photography app going free (today only) on the iTunes App Store https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ilightn ... 21890?mt=8. It claims to be able to detect and capture lightning strikes. I have downloaded and I'll have to give it a go sometime when we get a thunderstorm :)
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by Skywatcher »

April values for my station:

Ave min: 9.7C
Ave max: 16.8C
Mean: 12.6C

Min: 2.4C on 27th
Max: 23.6C on 2nd

Rain: 172.6mm on 16 days with 40.8mm on 29th (YTD 345mm). Both new month and daily records for April.
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by David »

The main April figures for my station:

Code: Select all

Avg temp           17.6 °C
Avg daily min      13.8 °C
Avg daily max      22.2 °C
Lowest temp         8.4 °C
Highest temp       24.9 °C

Total rain         112 mm
Wettest day         50 mm
YTD rain           208 mm
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Nev
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by Nev »

An extraordinarily warm, wet and cloudy April overall, the exceptions being above normal sunshine for the north of the North Island and relatively cooler temps in inland Canterbury.
April 2014 Climate Anomaly Maps (NIWA).gif
Some preliminary April 2014 temp and rainfall figures for the main centres:

Code: Select all

April 2014 Average Temps, Rainfall and departures from their 1981-2010 normals ℅ NIWA

Site                      T-max °C       T-min °C       T-mean °C    Rainfall mm

Auckland, Mangere        21.8  +1.7     14.7  +2.3     18.2  +2.0     129  153% 
Auckland Aero            21.7  +1.7     14.3  +1.6     18.0  +1.7     108  127% 
Tauranga Aero            21.6  +1.6     14.0  +2.7     17.8  +2.2     225  187% 
Hamilton Aero            21.5  +1.6     10.8  +2.4     16.2  +2.0     162  185% 
Hamilton, Ruakura        22.0  +2.1     11.5  +2.5     16.8  +2.3     135  162% 
Wellington, Kelburn      17.2  +0.6     12.2  +1.5     14.7  +1.0     263  310% 
Christchurch Aero        15.8  -1.6      9.2  +2.7     12.5  +0.6     162  367% 
Dunedin, Musselburgh     14.9  -0.4      9.6  +1.4     12.2  +0.5     100  196%
Note that NIWA's Riccarton, Chch site recorded 224mm for the month (including 76mm for the 17/18 event and 86mm for the 28/29 event), which is about 485% of nearby Chch Garden's April normal, and considerably more than Chch Aero's tally.
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by RWood »

Nev wrote:An extraordinarily warm, wet and cloudy April overall, the exceptions being above normal sunshine for the north of the North Island and relatively cooler temps in inland Canterbury.
April 2014 Climate Anomaly Maps (NIWA).gif
Some preliminary April 2014 temp and rainfall figures for the main centres:

Code: Select all

April 2014 Average Temps, Rainfall and departures from their 1981-2010 normals ℅ NIWA

Site                      T-max °C       T-min °C       T-mean °C    Rainfall mm

Auckland, Mangere        21.8  +1.7     14.7  +2.3     18.2  +2.0     129  153% 
Auckland Aero            21.7  +1.7     14.3  +1.6     18.0  +1.7     108  127% 
Tauranga Aero            21.6  +1.6     14.0  +2.7     17.8  +2.2     225  187% 
Hamilton Aero            21.5  +1.6     10.8  +2.4     16.2  +2.0     162  185% 
Hamilton, Ruakura        22.0  +2.1     11.5  +2.5     16.8  +2.3     135  162% 
Wellington, Kelburn      17.2  +0.6     12.2  +1.5     14.7  +1.0     263  310% 
Christchurch Aero        15.8  -1.6      9.2  +2.7     12.5  +0.6     162  367% 
Dunedin, Musselburgh     14.9  -0.4      9.6  +1.4     12.2  +0.5     100  196%
Note that NIWA's Riccarton, Chch site recorded 224mm for the month (including 76mm for the 17/18 event and 86mm for the 28/29 event), which is about 485% of nearby Chch Garden's April normal, and considerably more than Chch Aero's tally.
+

Some commonality with April 1938, but that one had some massive rainfalls in Coromandel and Hawkes Bay. Ch'ch Aero had only 69 hours of sunshine as at the 29th, so the Aero low of 95 in 1968 is shattered, and the Gardens low of 80 in 1938 will also be beaten. So its total won't even be 50% of the average - a rare event in NZ's sunshine climatology. In 1938, Waimate logged only 63 hours - followed by 180 in May!
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by Razor »

The time has to come soon when the chch airport readings are recognised to be not representative of Chch city. Its rural vs urban and removed enough from the various effects of the coast and port hills
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by spwill »

Razor wrote:The time has to come soon when the chch airport readings are recognised to be not representative of Chch city. Its rural vs urban and removed enough from the various effects of the coast and port hills
Quite a large part of Christchurch is in a similar climate zone to the Airport is it not. Its not like Dunedin where a large part of the city is in the coastal and hills climate areas.
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General April Weather

Unread post by jamie »

Hamilton airport is the same and I'm sure it's the same all over the world. Generally airports are on the outer edge of cities.
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by RWood »

The NIWA monthly stats. reports give summaries for 4 Ch'ch sites, plus a goodly number in the surrounding regions.
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by CHCH Weather Chaser »

spwill wrote:
Razor wrote:The time has to come soon when the chch airport readings are recognised to be not representative of Chch city. Its rural vs urban and removed enough from the various effects of the coast and port hills
Quite a large part of Christchurch is in a similar climate zone to the Airport is it not. Its not like Dunedin where a large part of the city is in the coastal and hills climate areas.
Totally agree Razor! This has been an underlying issue that has been bothering me for a while. Consistently higher rainfall totals are recorded throughout much of CHCH in comparison to the airport station. It really is not reflective of the majority of the city. The station should be far more central, the airport is on the outskirts really in a way.
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2014 Rainfall: Jan: 21mm Feb: 76mm March: 170mm April: 201mm YTD: 468mm
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by Razor »

spwill wrote:
Razor wrote:The time has to come soon when the chch airport readings are recognised to be not representative of Chch city. Its rural vs urban and removed enough from the various effects of the coast and port hills
Quite a large part of Christchurch is in a similar climate zone to the Airport is it not. Its not like Dunedin where a large part of the city is in the coastal and hills climate areas.
No, its often different at the airport- ie less effects of the easterly, more NW effects, and on a number of occasions the Peninsula sucks more significant weather across the CBD, but not as far as the western fringe of the city where the airport is. this is why Riccarton NIWA and the city and southern/ eastern suburbs received so much more rain last week- up to 50mm more
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by NZ Thunderstorm Soc »

Yeah, it can be NW at the airport whereas a NE can be blowing in town.
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by spwill »

Perhaps RWood could provide us with some climate averages from various locations across Chch. :smile:
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by NZ Thunderstorm Soc »

There's Bob Crowder's weather records from the 1960s to the present day from his site in Cashmere, which would be very accurate. :smile:
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by RWood »

Don't if it will be of much help, but here are some rainfall averages for 4 periods (51-80,61-90,71-00,81-10), in that order.

Rangiora 735 727 756 688
Ch'ch Aero 640 616 630 594
Waimak. bridge 646 624 598 523 (latter looks low!)
Prebbleton 701 (-) 654 632
Gardens 668 644 653 618
Shirley 615 578 587 559
Bromley 623 593 602 (-)
Mt Pleasant 702 681 699 655
Burnham 683 643 646 639
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by Manukau heads obs »

Shirley thats a bit on the low side
Also not as much variation overall from airport
To inner city as suggested
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by spwill »

Thanks RWood.
Variation across Christchurch will show up better with temperature, the Airport is in a cooler zone ( for mean temperatures)
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by RWood »

spwill wrote:Thanks RWood.
Variation across Christchurch will show up better with temperature, the Airport is in a cooler zone ( for mean temperatures)
There are only 3 sites quoted for temperature means in the NIWA tables, unless I missed some - (mean annual Tmax, mean annual Tmin here): Ch'ch Aero 16.9 6.3; Ch'ch Gardens 17.2 7.3; Mt Pleasant 16.2 9.2. The aero-city difference is greatest in winter (at least 0.8C in July).
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by Razor »

RWood wrote:Don't if it will be of much help, but here are some rainfall averages for 4 periods (51-80,61-90,71-00,81-10), in that order.

Rangiora 735 727 756 688
Ch'ch Aero 640 616 630 594
Waimak. bridge 646 624 598 523 (latter looks low!)
Prebbleton 701 (-) 654 632
Gardens 668 644 653 618
Shirley 615 578 587 559
Bromley 623 593 602 (-)
Mt Pleasant 702 681 699 655
Burnham 683 643 646 639
Thanks RWood- this does confirm to me a bit of evidence of an increasing gradient of rainfall if you follow accross town from from particularly Prebbleton to Mt Pleasant. Rangiora is interesting too as an outlier (both in the physical and statistical sense!)

Shirley I guess is a bit further north- as I said earlier, i really do see a belt accross wthe Southern / SW side of town where the Port Hills ramp events up, while the rest can experience that famous Port Hills Rainshadow ie Shirley
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by Razor »

well I never--- turns out where there was smoke there was a blazing inferno. ChCh Aero figures underreported!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/y ... our-months
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by melja »

Poor reporting though! CHCH airport gets more than 443mm a year :lol:
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by melja »

Have changed the story now and added a bit at the bottom, sounds like M/S don't even know what our avg yearly rainfall is.

"* The MetService provided an incorrect rainfall figure in a previous story published on press.co.nz. It said the airport, on average, received about 443mm of rain a year. The correct figure is 620mm. "
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by Nev »

Here's NIWA's preliminary, 'April 2014 National Climate Summary'.


The national average temp of 14.5C was 1.1C above normal.

The month's highest temp of 29.6C was recorded at Whakatane on the 7th, which was also its highest daily T-max for the year so far.

The lowest of temp of -4.2C was yet again recorded at Pukaki Aero on the 29th.

Too many other record or near record temps and rainfall to mention…
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Re: General April Weather

Unread post by RWood »

melja wrote:Have changed the story now and added a bit at the bottom, sounds like M/S don't even know what our avg yearly rainfall is.

"* The MetService provided an incorrect rainfall figure in a previous story published on press.co.nz. It said the airport, on average, received about 443mm of rain a year. The correct figure is 620mm. "
Still not really correct - the 1981-2010 mean is 594mm, though the all-records mean from 1943 is about 620 mm (624 mm for 1943-2011)
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