NZ Weather Forum

With the lack of substantial cold fronts hitting New Zealand this year I was wondering what this could be primarily put down to? Would the Southern Annular Mode being consistently in positive territory lately or perhaps even the MJO not doing its thing be playing a major part? I would imagine El Nino or lack thereof would also be having a say? Is there any other factor apart from just bad luck do you think?

Bradley wrote:With the lack of substantial cold fronts hitting New Zealand this year I was wondering what this could be primarily put down to? Would the Southern Annular Mode being consistently in positive territory lately or perhaps even the MJO not doing its thing be playing a major part? I would imagine El Nino or lack thereof would also be having a say? Is there any other factor apart from just bad luck do you think?

My thoughts are that isn't it all similar to these 'stuck' weather patterns of the past couple years across the world. I haven't been watching the southern ocean but im sure somewhere there has been a spot getting cold front after cold front coming up from Antarctica. We are just on in the stuck quiet part of the pattern.

June pattern can be lazy with a lot of Highs, by August the pattern is typically more disturbed.

Don't think I ever recall seeing a convergence line develop in the evening in June. Got low topped convective showers here.

A stable June, drier and sunnier than normal here, no thunder heard at my place. Temperature near normal, no frost here.

Been a good month for Sun locally. Be interesting to see what total Ruakura ends up with. Have yet another blue dome day today.

Fog day here max of 1 deg

Pleasant but cool end to the day here. Photo taken around 5pm on my walk. Sky tower can be seen to the left of the sun if you look closely

Great photo, David

Red sunrise sky this morning, and a sharply defined NW Arch.

Fog here this morning, 6C.

Yet another rubbish very foggy day. Not sure why we are getting so many of these this year. Is it because the land is so saturated from the autumn and calm weather combined with no/little southerly (dry air) flow?

Bradley wrote:With the lack of substantial cold fronts hitting New Zealand this year I was wondering what this could be primarily put down to? Would the Southern Annular Mode being consistently in positive territory lately or perhaps even the MJO not doing its thing be playing a major part? I would imagine El Nino or lack thereof would also be having a say? Is there any other factor apart from just bad luck do you think?

The SAM was positive for the second half of June. That doesn't shed light on why it was positive though; what are the root causes of the contraction and expansion of the westerly wind belt.
The MJO is not a significant influence on NZ weather patterns during this half of the year.

jamie wrote:Yet another rubbish very foggy day. Not sure why we are getting so many of these this year. Is it because the land is so saturated from the autumn and calm weather combined with no/little southerly (dry air) flow?

Would be getting very sick of it too if was based north of about Horitiu. But for those of us just a few kms South it has largely bypassed and looks like Ruakua is going to record at least 150 hours of sun if not more which is well above average for June.

Today though finally the urban area was in the thick of it. At work the sun broke through about 1pm and lasted till 4, but then the fog came back in from the Northwest.

However, back at home in Cambridge it had cleared before 9am when I left and has stayed clear all day as evidenced by my webcam! Very hit and miss.

Yes Hamilton CBD was very foggy and stayed around for a significant part of the day yet out in Matangi it cleared around 9-10AM.

A relatively mild, dry and sunny June overall.


Some very preliminary June 2017 figures for the main centres:
Edit: Minor corrections to table figures.

June was a chilly month here. I've only got last year to compare too, but our mean temp of 5.8°C was 1.6°C lower than last year.
Mean Temp: 5.8°C
Mean Min: 2.0°C
Mean Max: 11.3°C
Rainfall: 36.8mm

Yes, but probably no more 'chilly' than normal based on NIWA's nearby Dunedin figures. Note that last June was Dunedin's warmest on record. And the month before that was also both Dunedin's and Chch's third warmest May on record.

Here's NIWA's preliminary, 'June 2017 National Climate Summary'.

Record-dry June for parts of the North Island


The national average temp of 8.8C was 0.2C above normal.

The month's highest temp of 22.2C was recorded at Riccarton, Christchurch on the 12th, and the lowest temp of -8.0C was recorded at Middlemarch on the 26th.


Akld Aero (with records beginning in 1962) was among those recording their driest ever June .