NZ Weather Forum

there is a blue dot on the rain radar in your screen shot though about the henderson area
(just to the right of the d)

RODALCO wrote:The rain radar may have been out of calibration today. It was bucketing down with rain in Central Park Drive, Lincoln, Henderson, while the radar only showed tiny light yellow dots.

This higher res radar pic at 12:15pm today shows that small cell right over Central Park in Henderson…

Was clear and +0.6deg at 6:30am;
now 5.2deg and fog arriving from the north, with a gentle breeze stirring twigs and leaves constantly.
Very dreary with the thick overcast.

A few small heat showers yesterday , stayed dry around here.
A thunder risk for the west of the NI tomorrow night/Wednesday morning, Waikato to Taranaki

The more of these forecasts the better, next week has been looking unstable for a few runs of GFS now!

Bradley wrote:The more of these forecasts the better, next week has been looking unstable for a few runs of GFS now!

+300 hours! Yikes that's a long way out..

SnwAddct wrote:

Bradley wrote:The more of these forecasts the better, next week has been looking unstable for a few runs of GFS now!

+300 hours! Yikes that's a long way out..

It was more a remark on how consistent GFS has been in forecasting a stormy and unstable week next week, obviously nothing specific that far out just a general trend I was remarking on

Feels ever warmer than 19 today with sunny skies and light winds. Almost ridiculous after last week's cold periods.

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Yea very warm the last 3 days. Beautiful!

Dull day in Chch. The radar doesn't show it, but it's been drizzly this afternoon.

WE have seemed to missed the low cloud/stratus come what may, today, but low cloud is moving in from the north now.

Missed any cloud here too, been a lovely sunny day.

Isolated weak heat showers over West Auckland again today, photo.
A mild 18C this afternoon.

Neat looking cloud spwill


Digging some of the garden in the weekend i noticed that its getting very dry again, starting to think will we ever see another flooding rain again, be coming up three years the last time we've had such an event.

Richard wrote:Neat looking cloud spwill


Digging some of the garden in the weekend i noticed that its getting very dry again, starting to think will we ever see another flooding rain again, be coming up three years the last time we've had such an event.

was north canterbury always like this though? even 5 years ago i only remember one stormy afternoon downpour in all the time i worked in the amuri basin but always dry, thought it was geographically stuck in a rain shadow from almost all directions.

shovelopikis wrote:

Richard wrote:

Digging some of the garden in the weekend i noticed that its getting very dry again, starting to think will we ever see another flooding rain again, be coming up three years the last time we've had such an event.

was north canterbury always like this though? even 5 years ago i only remember one stormy afternoon downpour in all the time i worked in the amuri basin but always dry, thought it was geographically stuck in a rain shadow from almost all directions.

Not for such long periods as this, this is not normal, sure March was wet this year but really all that did was give the sub soils a good wetting, a wet period where the country side was totally sodden was about three years ago. Even over the last 15 years, as a kid i remember the Ashley river north of Rangiora used to have a mostly open braided river bed, hasn't been a flood now for 15 years to clean out all the over grown vegetation.
It is getting drier, a farmer not far from me was telling me recently that going by his father weather recordings we get about 100mm less rainfall per year than back in the 50 & 60's.

Have to disagree with the Ashley river thing Richard, was a couple of good floods not many years ago one of which destroyed one pier of the rangiora bridge forcing a complete rebuild of the bridge.

The rivers are no longer clean because they have stopped clearing with bulldozers.

Richard wrote: Not for such long periods as this, this is not normal, sure March was wet this year but really all that did was give the sub soils a good wetting, a wet period where the country side was totally sodden was about three years ago. Even over the last 15 years, as a kid i remember the Ashley river north of Rangiora used to have a mostly open braided river bed, hasn't been a flood now for 15 years to clean out all the over grown vegetation.
It is getting drier, a farmer not far from me was telling me recently that going by his father weather recordings we get about 100mm less rainfall per year than back in the 50 & 60's.

Interesting. I did a quick and dirty calculation from the Riverside station data (not far from Culverden), and it shows the following decadal averages:
1920s 714mm
1930s 667mm
1940s 861mm (2 years missing)
1950s 755mm
1960s 668mm
1970s 771mm
1980s 692mm
1990s 696mm
2000s 640mm
2010s 695mm (to 2016)

So, the 2000s were the driest decade, although the 60s and the 30s were similar. The 40s were clearly the wettest decade, but the 50s and 70s were also wet. Interestingly we haven't seen a wet decade at this site since the 70s.

TonyT wrote:

Richard wrote: Not for such long periods as this, this is not normal, sure March was wet this year but really all that did was give the sub soils a good wetting, a wet period where the country side was totally sodden was about three years ago. Even over the last 15 years, as a kid i remember the Ashley river north of Rangiora used to have a mostly open braided river bed, hasn't been a flood now for 15 years to clean out all the over grown vegetation.
It is getting drier, a farmer not far from me was telling me recently that going by his father weather recordings we get about 100mm less rainfall per year than back in the 50 & 60's.

Interesting. I did a quick and dirty calculation from the Riverside station data (not far from Culverden), and it shows the following decadal averages:
1920s 714mm
1930s 667mm
1940s 861mm (2 years missing)
1950s 755mm
1960s 668mm
1970s 771mm
1980s 692mm
1990s 696mm
2000s 640mm
2010s 695mm (to 2016)

So, the 2000s were the driest decade, although the 60s and the 30s were similar. The 40s were clearly the wettest decade, but the 50s and 70s were also wet. Interestingly we haven't seen a wet decade at this site since the 70s.

Yeah it's interesting how memory can't be completely relied upon normally, stats don't lie 2010-2016 by average has been as wet or wetter then 5 of the last 9 decades...

I'm referring more to the lack of floods in the Ashley over the last 15 years, before then there were a lot more bank to bank floods that kept the river bed more open than it is now, memory is that bad that i cant remember even one major flood in the last 15, after all thats why some of the nesting birds that need weed free gravel islands have ended up nesting on a dairy farm east oh SH1.
Its either getting drier or the over all rainfalls are smaller but more spread out.

Those Riverside totals- been closer to the ranges they do get more rain than the southern end of the Amuri, but interesting to see that there's been no 700mm+ totals since the 70's, a dyer trend in the last thirty

A terrible day to end Autumn in Geraldine.
Dull, cold and overcast all day with no wind at all.
Hope the winter months will bring some decent weather here?

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:A terrible day to end Autumn in Geraldine.
Dull, cold and overcast all day with no wind at all.
Hope the winter months will bring some decent weather here?

Not for a while yet but July and August could bring some interesting weather by the sounds of it,,,

This may looks to be in the top 5 coldest May's in the last 32 years for Christchurch Airport, we will see if that means anything for the coming winter. I can't really see any definite trend in it being a colder then average May then also being a cold winter, at least for Christchurch anyway...

It felt like a good May here, see how the numbers look in a day or two. From a weather interest point of view it was thoroughly boring.

spwill wrote: From a weather interest point of view it was thoroughly boring.

I agree with that whole-heartedly