General December Weather

[Orion]

Wind seems to have swung round to southerly quarter here now.
Rain radar not showing up today? "no images available".

[Dean.]

Just had a 9 degree temp drop in 2 minutes,southerly on the way ChCh.Nudged 30 degrees earlier

[RWood]

Milford Sound only had 40% of its normal rainfall back in Aug and Sep, and probably about 70% this Dec. However, the rest of the year has been well above average, with about 9.1 metres ytd, compared to 6.7 metres for a normal year.

Then the 1988 record of 9232mm may be under threat if there's a decent rain event in the last week ... wonder how much Cropp Waterfall has logged ...

Edit: adding up the NIWA monthly summary totals and the Met service website dailies it comes to 9134mm so far subject to verification - with rain in its forecast for several of the remaining days, the record should go.

I've based those figures on NIWA's long-term Milford Sound site, which shows 9,094mm ytd, or currently 138mm short of its own 1988 record. The nearby AWS and EWS also both have incomplete data for 2016.

According to the West Coast Regional Council, Cropp River at Waterfall's 2016 ytd rainfall is currently 11,752mm (calendar-year record is 16,617mm in 1998).

Still a modest chance for Milford then ...re Cropp, the YTD is not far above average so the zone of large surplus must be further south.

Did you get a Jan-Nov total of 8624mm for the long term Milford site? I grabbed the numbers from monthly summaries for Jan-Oct and from CliFlo for November.

[Nev]

Did you get a Jan-Nov total of 8624mm for the long term Milford site? I grabbed the numbers from monthly summaries for Jan-Oct and from CliFlo for November.

Yes, 8,624mm for Jan to Nov, plus another 534mm for Dec to 9am this morning. So currently only about 75mm short of its 1988 record.

[David]

Quite a temperature contrast across Auckland today. We were out at Waimauku, mainly overcast there with drizzly showers at times, felt around 20C max. Meanwhile, during sunny spells it reached 24.9C at Howick.

[melja]

Another 10mm of rain in Rangiora today and once again very wet up Amberly way.

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[David]

Certainly a cool day for the time of year, only around 18C most of the afternoon.

[melja]

Can this topic get back to December weather, very hard to find normal day to day post with all the technical jargon.

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[Manukau heads obs]

max of only 17.8 c here today, due to no sunshine
next couple of days looks like summer returns

[Nev]

Can this topic get back to December weather, very hard to find normal day to day post with all the technical jargon.

Mod note: I've created a new thread for the current discussions about the Southern Annular Mode.
I've also edited some unnecessarily long quotes. In future, could we please try and limit quotes to just the points you wish to comment on (if at all), as it saves having to wade through a lot of unnecessary and repetitive clutter. This is also the reason Admin limited quotes to one quote within a quote. Thanks.

[Manukau heads obs]

This is also the reason Admin limited quotes to one quote within a quote

just thought that was worth quoting
sorry

[Richard]

Thick fog here this morning which is uncommon for summer, more spring and autumn

[NZstorm]

Looks like the last day of the year will be moist over the South Island with the risk of an elevated thunderstorm in west and south.

24hr accumulated rainfall for the 31st.

[Richard]

Like how they have the heaviest rain out to sea and not along the mountains

[Captain Salty]

conditions have been right for contrails all day

[David]

It was the coolest December my station has recorded in the last 7 years.

Station stats:

Code: Select all

Avg temperature        17.4°C	
Avg daily high         22.4°C	
Avg daily low          13.1°C	
Highest temperature    24.9°C	   5 Dec 2016
Lowest temperature     10.3°C	  30 Dec 2016
Total rainfall         44.8 mm

[Richard]

Dec Rainfall total 59.2mm

" Temps min 3.0deg 30/12/2016 ,max 25.7deg 25/12/2016

[Manukau heads obs]

Dec was 0.5 C colder than 'normal' for here
considering the cloudy SW winds , I am surprised it was not worse..GW must have helped a bit

[Nev]

A predominantly SW pattern this December made for a relatively mostly cool, dry and sunny month…

Dec 2016 Climate Anomaly Map ℅ NIWA.gif

Some very preliminary December 2016 figures for the main centres:

Code: Select all

Dec 2016 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        21.7  +0.1     14.3  -0.5     18.0  -0.2      33   39% 
Auckland Aero            21.8   0.0     14.5  -0.4     18.1  -0.2      33   38% 
Tauranga Aero            22.3  +0.1     13.3  -0.6     17.8  -0.2      44   47%
Hamilton Aero            21.7  -0.5     10.5  -1.1     16.1  -0.8      48   46% 
Hamilton, Ruakura        21.8  -0.2     11.3  -0.7     16.5  -0.5      45   46% 
Wellington, Kelburn      18.4  -0.2     11.8  -0.5     15.1  -0.3      80   96% 
Christchurch Aero        20.7  -0.4     10.4  -0.1     15.5  -0.3      56  120% 
Dunedin, Musselburgh     18.1  +0.8     10.1  -0.3     14.1  +0.3      37   46%
Greymouth Aero           17.1  -1.1     10.2  -1.0     13.7  -1.0     253  101%

[Nev]

NIWA's long-term Milford Sound site ended up with 9,256mm for 2016, beating its previous annual rainfall record in 1988 by 23.5mm, since records began there in late 1929.

[NZstorm]

Ricky's Grey Lynn average daily min 12.8C, Max 22.8C.
Precip 27.8mm.

[jamie]

Good riddance to that December

[Richard]

Amazing that ive recorded the highest rainfall out of us forum members, cant see that happening again for a long time.

[NZstorm]

Amazing that ive recorded the highest rainfall out of us forum members, cant see that happening again for a long time.

When I was in the South Island at Christmas I went through Tekapo/Waitaki and it was green. Not lush Green but definitely green, not the usual brown. And the Lupins were having a good season!

[RWood]

Another subpar month, and January might turn out to be the 5th in a row. Good riddance to a cloudy wettish 2016 (2nd cloudiest since 1992).