NZ Weather Forum

Hail in Nelson region yesterday, according to news photos, plus snow on Takaka Hill.

The NE kicked in a couple of times this afternoon, giving the sky an unstable look but sadly timing and high surface barometer and other boring factors, hindering any development.
Pity this didn't happen, say on Friday or Saturday.

Only 1.2C here at the moment with frost on hard
surfaces.

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Mod Note:
Thought the number of posts re the hailstorms/thunder in Akld yesterday could do with its own thread.

I had the pleasure on Saturday of running the Mt Somers Trail Marathon. An absolutely epic adventure, snow to nearly the foot of the mountain at the start, followed by a clearance and then the convergence storms bubbled up with thunder, snow flurries and a spectacular prolonged hailstorm, perhaps the longest period of hail I have seen in my life which gave us significant accumulations. It can in several waves afterwards too, epic stuff!

A fairly mild October 2016 overall. The North Island generally started off wet and cloudy, but ended drier and sunnier. The South Island was mainly wet and in the Nelson and Otago areas. Sunniest places were in the west and the north, while cloudy in some other areas.
Some very preliminary October 2016 figures for the main centres:

Dont agree with that NIWA chart shows we had between 80-100% of rainfall anomaly, 29.4mm for the month is only about 50%

Great photos, Razor!

Richard wrote:Dont agree with that NIWA chart shows we had between 80-100% of rainfall anomaly, 29.4mm for the month is only about 50%

NIWA's anomaly charts are based only on current sites with comparative long-term histories. The nearest such site to you is about 20km away in Culverden. It recorded 45mm or about 93% of its October normal.

Very chilly conditions for a marathon Razor. Certainly very scenic, that area is the nicest part of Canterbury I think.

Waiau on the other side of Culverden had only 37.2mm for the month, Cheviot 37.0mm, both these two sites and there one on my place would be well short of 90%, though the AWS here hasn't been here long enough to work out an true average yet, but it would be around the 50-60mm.

Would NIWA use the Met Service data from Culverden though?

There was thunderstorms in the area so rainfall will be very hit and miss, I know a place up there that had 30mm from one storm.

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melja wrote:There was thunderstorms in the area so rainfall will be very hit and miss, I know a place up there that had 30mm from one storm.

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Yes on that day the two storms were very intense and localized, each no more than a km wide, i know two people that live in the Hurunui settlement who recorded 50mm in half an hour. The other storm over Hawarden with 30mm in 7-10mins.

Richard wrote:Waiau on the other side of Culverden had only 37.2mm for the month, Cheviot 37.0mm, both these two sites and there one on my place would be well short of 90%, though the AWS here hasn't been here long enough to work out an true average yet, but it would be around the 50-60mm.

Hmm… NIWA's Waiau School CWS shows 60.6mm and its Cheviot EWS shows 44.8mm for this Oct...

Btw, the term 'AWS' (Automatic Weather Station) is typically assigned to MS sites, and the term 'EWS' (Electronic Weather Station) is typically assigned to NIWA or other Crown Research sites to help distinguish between the two, even though they basically mean the same thing. NIWA also use the term 'CWS' (Compact Weather Station) when describing sites such as yours.

Would NIWA use the Met Service data from Culverden though?

Yes, part of MS's contract with NIWA since they split in 1992 is that MS continue to provide data from their historical sites for NIWA's archives. However, in more recent years MS now only seem to supply the bare minimum (e.g. no hourly data) and also appear to be a little more tardy with passing on that data.

i know two people that live in the Hurunui settlement who recorded 50mm in half an hour. The other storm over Hawarden with 30mm in 7-10mins.

The latter would be close to a record... the official 10 minute record being 34mm at Tauranga in 1948.

Nev wrote: Hmm… NIWA's Waiau School CWS shows 60.6mm and its Cheviot EWS shows 44.8mm for this Oct...

Yes i can see whats happened now, it only gives 3000 samples, that only took me up to the 21/10/2016 which gave me the 37.2, another 32.8mm fall from then till the end of the month. 39.2mm for here.

Here's NIWA's preliminary, 'October 2016 National Climate Summary'.

A wet month for parts of the South Island and eastern North Island, warm in most locations.


The national average temp of 12.8C was 0.67C above normal.

The month's highest temp of 27.1C was shared by Riccarton, Christchurch on the 19th and Wairoa on the 20th. The lowest temp of -3.8C was again recorded at Mt Cook Aero on the 22nd.

Auckland weather usually turns more stable during October, end of the cool season wet. We saw that this October with downpours to start the month and much more drier sunnier weather in the mix for the last couple of weeks.