General December Weather

[dogmelon]

The risk map has a low risk of tornadoes for canterbury of the "mini" variety.

[Richard]

Strong NW has sprung up here at the camp. Very blustery indeed

Same here too, though we are in a Strong Wind Warning - Orange. But so far just a standard wind for NW Grand Central.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Southerly wind change through here just before noon. See what happens.

[darcyplumb]

My iPhone camera isn’t great but I managed to capture these baby Kelvin Heimholtz waves to the south of Ashburton just now.

[Orion]

^ well spotted, I saw the cloud and didn't pick the detail.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

My iPhone camera isn’t great but I managed to capture these baby Kelvin Heimholtz waves to the south of Ashburton just now.

Interesting
Managed to capture this high cloud form of cirrus uncinus this afternoon before the surface weather change.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Well to end off 2023, it went off with a bang with a thunderous applause. Not much of a thunderstorm but it did eventuate and it did happen despite the low cloud cover or clagg hundering the view of development.
27.1C it got to until the gradual cooling of the southerly which went through here around 1pm. Westerly winds above, which with gradual development led to the thunderstorm development down here on a rather thin line, which produced thee localised downpour this afternoon, 10.1mm for today in 12 minutes. Cloudy this evening and becoming much colder 11.4C at 10pm.

[dogmelon]

Oh well its a bit rubbish in the way of storms.
Edit: LOL I knew that comment would make some thunder and boom there it goers.,

[Razor]

And as at 12:28am we have the first thunder and lightning of the year here at Kairaki. Only beaten by 2012 where mr and mrs Razor had earthshaking thunder and lightning all day and night at Siberia Hut Mt Aspiring for 2 days

[Razor]

Non stop lightning and thunder yusss

[David]

Last 3 days of December we got 95mm locally, ending the month on 148mm (unusual to get a wet November and a wet December in an El Niño).

Final rainfall total for 2023 was 1829mm (wettest on record by 73mm)

[Nev]

116mm here for Dec.

I see Auckland Aero matched its 2010 record for highest ever Dec temp of 28.3C yesterday.

[Richard]

Dec recordings for Medbury-
rainfall - 32.5mm
max temp - 31.5 deg on the 20th
min temp - 11.6deg on the 4th
highest overnight min - 16.6deg on the 30th
lowest min - 1.7deg on the 11th
days where thunder was heard - #*@ none

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

December readings from Raukapuka Geraldine :

minimum - 6C (Saturday the 2nd)
maximum - 31.7C (Wednesday the 20th)
highest minimum - 16C (Monday the 25th)
lowest maximum - 13.1C (Monday the 4th)
rainfall - 55.1mm over 15 days.
thunder heard on the 31st, no lightning seen.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Total rain fall here for 2023 was 799.7mm. (Av. 870mm) over 154 days, compared to Timaru airport's 524mm, Fairlie's 812mm and Twizel's 515.3mm.
Highest temperature was 33.6C on February the third
Lowest temperature was minus 4C on the morning of 11th of June.
56 frosts were recorded.

[Nev]

After a fairly mild start, temps really ramped up during the second half of December, with eastern parts of NZ and inland South Island recording multiple temps in the low 30's. A very warm December overall rounded off what is likely to be at least NZ's 2nd warmest year on record, if not the warmest? This also means that NZ's 3 warmest years on record will have all occurred in the last 3 years.

Dec 2023 Climate Anomaly Maps ℅ NIWA.png

Preliminary stats for the main centres:

Code: Select all

Dec 2023 Average Temps, Rainfall, Sunshine and departures from 1991-2020 normals ℅ NIWA

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

Auckland, Mangere       23.0  +1.3    16.2  +1.2    19.6  +1.2    111  155%    165   82%
Tauranga Aero           23.6  +1.0    15.5  +1.4    19.5  +1.2    127  124%
Hamilton Aero           23.0  +0.8    13.9  +2.0    18.5  +1.4     90   90%    155   77%
Wellington, Kelburn     18.9  +0.2    13.2  +0.8    16.0  +0.4     85   93%    196   90%
Christchurch Aero       21.6  +0.5    11.7  +1.3    16.7  +1.0     34   71%    188   87%
Dunedin, Musselburgh    18.3  +0.8    11.2  +0.8    14.8  +0.8     61   87%    205  111%
Greymouth Aero          18.9  +0.4    12.4  +1.0    15.7  +0.7    264  114%    165   89%

* Hamilton sunshine from Ruakura

[David]

A very warm December overall rounded off what is likely to be at least NZ's 2nd warmest year on record, if not the warmest?

Not sure about other areas of NZ but for my station 2022 was a full 1.0C above 2023

[Nev]

NIWA have confirmed today that 2023 was NZ's 2nd warmest year on record.

The national average temp was 13.61C (or 0.15C shy of NZ's 2022 record).