New Zealand Weather 2008
January 14th, 2009 at 9:51 am by David FarrarNIWA kindly sent me their 2008 weather report for New Zealand. Some extracts:
- The highest annual mean temperature recorded for the year was 16.5°C at Leigh (not a very high high!)
- The highest recorded extreme temperature of the year occurred in South Canterbury being 34.8 °C recorded at Timaru Airport on 12 January and 19 March and at Waione on 22 January in very hot dry northwesterly conditions.
- The lowest air temperature for the year was -9.5 ºC recorded at Mt. Cook on 20th August.
- The highest recorded wind gust for the year (as archived in the NIWA climate database) was 183 km/h at Mokohinau Island on 11 May in strong easterly conditions, and also 183 km/h at Hicks Bay on 18 June.
- The driest rainfall recording locations were Alexandra in Central Otago with 376mm of rain for the year, followed by Clyde with 378 mm, and then Middlemarch with 386 mm.
- Of the regularly reporting gauges, Cropp River in the Hokitika River catchment recorded the highest rainfall with 10,940 mm, followed by North Egmont 8878 mm for 2008.
- Wellington was by far the wettest main centre with 1662 mm, in contrast Christchurch and Dunedin were the driest of the five main centres with a mere 704 and 705 mm respectively. Auckland received 1226 mm and Hamilton 1220 mm.
- Blenheim was the sunniest centre in 2008, recording 2505 hours, followed by Nelson with 2472 hours, then Lake Tekapo with 2444 hours. Christchurch was the sunniest of the five main centres with 2230 sunshine hours, then Wellington 2205 hours. Auckland recorded 2108 hours, Hamilton 2057 hours and Dunedin 1912 hours.
So Wellington gets more rain and more sun than Auckland!
Tags: weather
January 14th, 2009 at 10:15 am
And Auckland remained at the top of the board for densest population.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 10:45 am
haha that’s a good one, Murray, and also true: We have more brain cells per square centimetre than people in any other region. We use them for finding cafes, retail sales, buying holiday homes in the South Island and during periods of general rutting.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 10:46 am
That may actually have been one of the first things I learned in Geography 101.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Yeah, Auckland weather is characterized by cloudiness with regular periods of very light drizzle. It take that over Wellington’s horizontal rain interspersed with sun that doesn’t reach half the city due to the hillsides.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Anything that keeps the jafas away is fine by me.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Murray
Are you a Cantab by any chance?
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
No, actually I used to be an Aucklander.
But I’m much better now.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
And did NIWA have anything to say about climate change, David?
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
SHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Stick to provincial parochialism for now greenfly!
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Why are they stealing my tax money to pay NIWA to collect all this data?
Everyone knows it’s hot in summer and cold in winter, and climate change is a myth. Why should I pay to provide employment for book-learnin’ folk to tell me what I already know? it’s political correctness gone mad.
We would all be much better off if we were unfettered from these dirty socialists, and free to live in some cave somewhere and draw my own conclusions about tomorrow’s weather from signs the insect gods send me.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Yep, it’s a conspiracy all right. Damned reality-based scientific community with their well-known liberal biases.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
“Why are they stealing my tax money to pay NIWA to collect all this data?”
Well said.. Those who want it should pay for it. If the data is so necessary, then there should be no problem with this.
NIWA have misled the public consistently on climate change (just look back at their predictions on sea level rises) and therefore have no scientific credibility. A disgraceful state of affairs for a group of scientists that receive tax payer funding. They just cannot any longer be trusted. My view is that they should be shut down and disbanded, but at the very least, because of the damage they have done to their own credibility, their funding should be substantially reduced.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I heard the MetService is one of the few government departments that actually make money (selling weather reports to commerical entities). As such, it is a prime candidate to be privatised!
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Whole thing is at
Vote:http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0901/S00014.htm
January 14th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Eh? I thought the prime candidates were the unprofitable ones?! Must be an ongoing debate within Libertarian-land…
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
“Eh? I thought the prime candidates were the unprofitable ones?!”
Typically economically illiterate collectivist. Who the fuck do you think is interested in paying good money for unprofitable organisations?
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
“Who the fuck do you think is interested in paying good money for unprofitable organisations?”
Any finance company you can name. Or Telecom.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Thank you Red. Maybe privatised was the wrong word in that respect – how ’bout…’leave the service to private industry’?
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
“Who the fuck do you think is interested in paying good money for unprofitable organisations?”
KiwiRail springs to mind….
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Anyone who would seriously prefer Wellingtons weather to Aucklands should be on very strong medication
That said, Auckland weather sucks. Actually we don’t have weather, we just kind of catch a little bit of everyone elses as it arrives or leaves.
NIWA: just spent 2 mill refurbishing offices (the old GE ones) in the Viaduct. They have a lovely 100 inch plasma in the foyer. Apparently it is more suitable than a fish tank, which is so 80′s. …and it only cost 60k, plus installation. Why does the NIWA need such spunky offices in the most expensive part of Auckland? Because they can, that’s why!
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
spot the jafa even blaming other people for their bloody weather now.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
It was beautiful and sunny in the Capital yesterday evening when I walked home from work to change clothes, then walked to a nice restaurant for dinner, then walked back to the Soundshell in the gardens for the summer festival concert.
Meanwhile, somewhere in a traffic jam in Auckland, a “Free” right-winging self-made man no doubt thanked his lucky stars that he was free to choose the traffic jam, and that none of HIS rates were being wasted on anything so frivolous as a pleasant evening’s entertainment for himself and his neighbours…
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I’ll see your NIWA and raise you my local tiny tinpot kebab shop – it has a 46 inch on the wall!
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Meanwhile, somewhere in a traffic jam in Auckland, a “Free” right-winging self-made man no doubt thanked his lucky stars that he was free to choose the traffic jam.
No, just the landless peasants have to suffer such indignities up here in Auckland, the self made men stay at home and laugh at us enjoying all the luxury that money can buy, but if we dare ask for some improvement to the infrastructure we get called thieves, jaffas or a bunch of rich wankers by our fellow working men living south of the Bombay hills.
So why do you abandon us Ratbiter we just wanted some more gruel
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Does New Zealand need NIWA at all?
It seems to be a bunch of green fanatics intent on scaring everybody crapless with meaningless 50-year predictions of doom weather, and somehow simultaneous fates of new deserts, rising seas, more turbulent weather, hotter sun with storms and cold spells.
There’s a case for ranking Ken Ring, the Moon Man forecaster, as safer than NIWA. Here’s why. Ring bases his weather forecasts on moon cycles. He bases this on the forecasting techniques of Maori (and most other indigenous peoples). He and they use the moon as merely a time gauge (think about it, our calendar is based on sun and moon cycles). All these systems rely on experience of what has happened at each stage of the year recorded or remembered into the past. Ring is using weather records (I hear he has done research on recorded weather in each month) to give general forecasts of what is likely to happen during the coming year based on experience. That’s all: forget his Moon-jumbo jargon, and look at his actual forecasts. This is fairly basic, if non-formal scientific method: extrapolate from experience to what is likely to happen. At least those who buy Ring’s books should know this is just guess work based on the past. And you don’t have to buy Ring if you think he is mumbo jumbo. And don’t expect too much. Regard it as saying, “based on the last 100 years or so this is what is likely to happen this year.”
On the other hand NIWA has complex software and its scientists have access to supercomputers to create elaborate models of what they think may to happen in weather. But there are so many factors and variables these forecasts can be solidly reliable for only a few weeks ahead. However, NIWA speaks with authority that is unjustified, especially when it is talking of decades ahead. We taxpayers have to buy this, though support for its scientists and expensive gear, whether or not we consider the results are merely mumbo jumbo in science speak. Uncertainty into the models, uncertainty out of them.
Truly superior to NIWA is the Weather Office, or Met Office,which has done a sound job for the country with good short-term forecasting. Why does NZ need NIWA to duplicate Met Office work?
There may be other useful parts of NIWA unconcerned with weather. They could be rehomed if NIWA were axed.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
That’s right, Jack5, NIWA have something they want us to know about the climate ahead, but we just don’t want to know, right?
Vote:(We should rely instead on… the man in the moon?)
“On the other hand NIWA has complex software and its scientists have access to supercomputers to create elaborate models of what they think may to happen in weather” – very funny Jack5, you’re a wag!
January 14th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
lyndon said
“Whole thing is at
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0901/S00014.htm ”
Thanks for that Lyndon!
Vote:confirmed to me that I am living in one of the best part of NZ (Napier)
I have lived in Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga and Palmerston North over the last 15 years before moving here early 2008. Far superior weather here than all of these places (unless you’re a farmer)
January 14th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
“We should rely instead on… the man in the moon”
I thought you buggers had already banned him ?
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Patrick – fear not, old chap. The Man in the Moon is a mere contrivance of the godless socialists, who frequently try to use this kind of Bad Science for scaremongering, to achieve world control, and to undermine the moral authority of the True Church and of our Heavenly Father, who supports capitalism and free markets.
You watch – today there’s a man in the moon, tomorrow they’ll be saying we descended from monkeys or that the world is heating up or some other rot…
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
the man in the moon causes crime waves
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
It would be much more credible if NIWA recognized that
Vote:Tauranga has replaced Dunedin as the 5th largest city!!
January 14th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
NIWA – bunch of scoundrels! What do they know about the weather – them and their years of statistics, research and qualified personel! Shysters! Bring back Augie Auer!
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Greenfly writes sarcastically: “NIWA – bunch of scoundrels! What do they know about the weather – them and their years of statistics, research and qualified personel! Shysters! Bring back Augie Auer!”
First, NIWA qualifications. Are they any better than those of the Met Office folk. No way!
Their (NIWA’s) years of statistics and research… Well that depends what they make of it Greenfly. At the moment they are trying to use it for 50 year forecasts, and they might as well as well be looking at chicken guts to reach the conclusions they leap to. Basically, NIWA leaders seem almost seem to be suffering from depressive disorder than in earlier years might have led them to some millennium sect and carrying placards reading “Repent! The End is Nigh!”
And leave Augie Auer alone. He was a decent man with a balanced mind and personality that contrasted with the NIWA doomsdayers. He knew a hell of a lot more about weather forecasting than them, too.
It’s time to end NIWA’s wasteful duplication of the Met Service.
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Greenfly also wrote above: “NIWA have something they want us to know about the climate ahead, but we just don’t want to know, right?”
Greenfly confuses knowledge with belief. NIWA may think it knows something about the climate ahead. But who would put money on accuracy of any daily forecasts it offered six months ahead!
To say NIWA knows something about the climate ahead is to assume the truth of its forecast. What NIWA knows is that if anyone in 50 years has heard of a very old former government agency called NIWA they still won’t have heard of its loud forecasts in 2009.
Greenfly, you may as well offer to bet anyone 20 million dollars to nothing that NIWA’s 50 year forecast will be accurate. Who will remember? Who will give an obese rat’s arse?
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I take the train from home to work (7 minutes each way, and a 5 min walk on each end).
Auckland also has a lot of free entertainment courtesy John Banks. I’ve lived in Wellington and Auckland and to me there’s no contest. It’s the beaches that totally clinch it too – how about long bay on a lazy summer day? Magic!
Vote:January 14th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Let me see 15 minutes of extra sun per day in Wellington, or 2-3 degrees warmer in Auckland. Me thinks I’ll be staying put in Auckland
Vote:January 15th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Hail on the Kaimai’s… in January!
Vote:January 15th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
# kelsey (3) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 0 Says:
January 14th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Meanwhile, somewhere in a traffic jam in Auckland, a “Free” right-winging self-made man no doubt thanked his lucky stars that he was free to choose the traffic jam, and that none of HIS rates were being wasted on anything so frivolous as a pleasant evening’s entertainment for himself and his neighbours…
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I take the train from home to work (7 minutes each way, and a 5 min walk on each end).
Auckland also has a lot of free entertainment courtesy John Banks. I’ve lived in Wellington and Auckland and to me there’s no contest. It’s the beaches that totally clinch it too – how about long bay on a lazy summer day? Magic!
I really wish i could have access to a train service to get from one job to another, rather than sitting in traffic, sometimes from 7am till 10am before i arrive at my first job, trust me.
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