General April Weather

[David]

Auckland's overall dam storage is now down to 47%, normal for the time of year is 77%.

[RWood]

Hello Nev. Could you include Kelburn AWS sun when giving the April summary data table ,, thanks a lot.

[Nev]

Hello Nev. Could you include Kelburn AWS sun when giving the April summary data table ,, thanks a lot.

Hi Rupert. No worries; will let you know as soon as MS pass it on to NIWA.

Hope you're feeling better btw?

[RODALCO]

Temperatures today reached 21 degrees in Makerau Valley. Old Woodcocks Road. Kaipara Flats inland.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Another fine day but with some thin high cloud. light wind or no wind at all. Nice 1030hPa weather.
Today's maximum was 18.1C.

[David]

Barometer on 1033 this morning, the highest it's been since September.

[Awhituobs]

lots more rain for australia I see from this new low
they sure have turned the corner now
must be our turn soon

[RWood]

Hello Nev. Could you include Kelburn AWS jsun when giving the April summary data table ,, thanks a lot.

Hi Rupert. No worries; will let you know as soon as MS pass it on to NIWA.

Hope you're feeling better btw?

Unfortunately not. Maybe later

[Razor]

So here we are at the end of another month where less than 10mm has fallen in Halswell. It feels like its been warmer than normal too, will see what the stats say. Great for lockdown fresh air, not great for the dry soils.

Sitting just under 60mm since Dec 18 last year- 4 and a half months!

[Cantab03]

Absolutely amazing day here in CHCH, sitting on 25 degrees locally and 24 at the airport. No wind to speak of. One day away from May!

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Absolutely amazing day here in CHCH, sitting on 25 degrees locally and 24 at the airport. No wind to speak of. One day away from May!

Nice day down here too.
Here's a photo I took of some "Mare's Tails" I took late this morning looking south.

[Dean.]

Like summer 25 degrees

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

After a light frost, a fine and warm day eventuated with it getting up to 23.6C.
Interesting high cloud forms today, with some lenticularis and cirrus forms.
Not much wind.

[Cyclone Tracy]

Local April stats

Mean daily temp = 16.8 (0.1c below the 2018/19 Ave)
Rainfall = 25.6mm (64.4mm below 2001-2019 average)
Prevailing wind SW
1 thunder day.
Air pressure ave 1016.4 hPa. (0.1 hPa below ave)
Humidity 77.6% (1.0% below average)

Year to date

Mean daily temp 0.9c below 2018/19 Ave
Rainfall 65.4mm , 268mm below 2001-2019 average.

Records

2020 is the driest start to the calendar year ever recorded (2001-2020).

[David]

Howick in April 2020

Summary:
Another very dry month. Last 6 calendar months now have a total rainfall of 154mm, making a mean monthly rainfall of just 26mm during the period. Temperature wise, this April was slightly below my average for the last 10 years.

Stats:
Mean temp = 16.2C (0.2C below avg)
Mean daily high = 21.2C
Mean daily low = 11.7C
Highest temp = 25.5C (1st)
Lowest temp = 7.1C (10th)
Total rainfall= 34.2mm
YTD rainfall = 79.6mm

[Awhituobs]

we got 48mm here for April
still only though 185mm year to date here
both much more than you guys
but still very low for here

[David]

https://twitter.com/NiwaWeather/status/ ... 6410778632

[Awhituobs]

umm that's more than a handful lol niwa

[Kentish Kiwi]

Howick in April 2020

Summary:
Another very dry month. Last 6 calendar months now have a total rainfall of 154mm, making a mean monthly rainfall of just 26mm during the period. Temperature wise, this April was slightly below my average for the last 10 years.

Stats:
Mean temp = 16.2C (0.2C below avg)
Mean daily high = 21.2C
Mean daily low = 11.7C
Highest temp = 25.5C (1st)
Lowest temp = 7.1C (10th)
Total rainfall= 34.2mm
YTD rainfall = 79.6mm

Hi David, how does the mean daily high compare to average? My suspicion was that the days have been slightly warmer than average but the nights below?

[David]

Hi David, how does the mean daily high compare to average? My suspicion was that the days have been slightly warmer than average but the nights below?

Correct, mean daily max was +0.3C compared to the 10 years prior and mean daily min -0.6C.

[cbm]

A PWS down the road here in Cambridge town.

24.89 Jan
22.35 Feb
113.52 March
100.34 April
261.1 YTD

Inside this bubble I have been stuck in, it's looking quite lush now. That said sure did not get that much right at the house, some of the rain was very heavy and localised.

But recorded by a Davis where family farm just 9km away:
5.6 Jan
26.8 Feb
61.8 March
54.2 April
148.4 YTD

Not as bad as Auckland,but still very dry. Will get to see soon how much it has greened up or not, further afield.

[Nev]

MetService April 2020 Summary - Drought lingers

April saw a combination of deep lows over the Tasman Sea, in between intense highs over NZ. Many areas saw more rainfall in April, than in total for the preceding three months.

However, April rainfall was still less than 50% of normal across northern and eastern areas of both Islands. Notably, rainfall tallies were less than 20% of normal along the eastern coastline between Gisborne City and Christchurch, typically ranking in the driest 5 Aprils on record. In western regions of the North Island, as well as Buller, Nelson, Southland and Otago, totals were about 50-80% of usual.

Unusually dry soils (drought) lingered through April across most of the North Island, as well as the northeast of the South Island, due to the combination of continued low rainfall, record or near-record sunshine, and relatively mild conditions. In contrast, it was a wet April for Fiordland and Westland.

Apr 2020 Climate Anomaly Maps ℅ NIWA.png

Some very preliminary April 2020 figures for the main centres:

Code: Select all

Apr 2020 Average Temps, Rainfall, Sunshine and departures from 1981-2010 normals ℅ NIWA

Site                     T-max °C       T-min °C     T-mean °C     Rain mm      Sun hrs

Auckland, Mangere       21.0  +0.9    11.6  -0.8    16.3  +0.1     25   29%    202  125%
Auckland Aero           20.8  +0.8    12.2  -0.5    16.5  +0.2     33   38%
Tauranga Aero           20.9  +0.9    11.4  +0.1    16.2  +0.6     16   14%    n/a   n/a
Hamilton Aero           20.7  +0.8     8.1  -0.3    14.4  +0.2     76   87%
Hamilton, Ruakura       21.7  +1.8     7.7  -1.3    14.7  +0.2     53   63%    195  118%
Wellington, Kelburn     16.7  +0.1    11.1  +0.4    13.9  +0.2     22   26%    196  121%
Christchurch Aero       19.0  +1.6     6.4  -0.1    12.7  +0.8     13   30%    199  122%
Dunedin, Musselburgh    15.2  -0.1     7.9  -0.3    11.6  -0.1     46   90%    159  127%
Greymouth Aero          16.6  -0.1     8.0  -1.0    12.3  -0.6    196  101%    161  116%

Edit: updated Chch sunshine

[Richard]

April stats for Medbury

rainfall 8.8 mm
max temp 26.1 11th
lowest temp -1.3 29th
Lowest max 13.7 15th
highest overnight low 13 27th

[Nev]

Hello Nev. Could you include Kelburn AWS sun when giving the April summary data table ,, thanks a lot.

As promised, the Kelburn AWS's April sunshine total is 205.9 hrs (compared to 195.9 hrs for the manual reading).

Wishing you brighter days ahead…

https://twitter.com/MetService/status/1 ... 7477031936

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Rainfall total for April, was 26.6mm over 14 days, with 2 frosts and the month's maximum of 24.6C, was recorded on Easter Sunday.