What's the Weather like at your place?

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Minus 2 degrees celcius when I started work at 4:00am this morning, but it ended up a nice winter day, although still a little bit chilly.







Sleep-in day tomorrow (and Thursday) as I enjoy a couple of rostered days off.

[Alicat]

It's stunning in Upper Hutt this morning. It's a little crisp but the sun is streaming into my house. I have the doors and windows open to air the place out - they will not be staying open too long though cos there is a bit of a bite to the air.

... and ... I am on days off

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

It was bloody cold in Wairarapa this morning, but it has turned out to be a beatiful, fine winter's day, although still a wee bit chilly....










A beautiful winter's day across the ranges in Wellington, too....

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Lovely day in Wellington today....






Yeah, I know....the bloody airport terminal windows are filthy!

[ssweetpea]

We had a lovely day yesterday in the land of Aucks.

Monday wasn't bad looking either but the wind had teeth. It was cold enough for me to light the fire before dusk. A highly unusual event.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

We had a lovely day yesterday in the land of Aucks.

Monday wasn't bad looking either but the wind had teeth. It was cold enough for me to light the fire before dusk. A highly unusual event.

Were you too embarrassed to mention the weather in Auckland today? 

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Plenty of lucky kids will be enjoying some awesome skiing on Whakapapa and Turoa skifields on Ruapehu during the middle day of this first week of the school holidays. Photographs taken about 3:30pm this afternoon while enroute from Wellington to Auckland....








(Yeah, I know....the aeroplane's windows were a wee bit scratched.)


I won't talk about Auckland's weather today (well....late afternoon when I arrived at JAFAville), because compared with the bottom of the North Island (ie....the REAL NZ), it isn't worth talking about.

[Alicat]

Lots of sunshine in Upper Hutt so far today. It was a nippy start with a little condensation on the windows but I have the doors and windows open and it's lovely. Two of the Scottycats are outside enjoying the sunshine - the other one prefers sitting inside in the lounge with the sun streaming in.

This sunshine is a bonus - we were meant to have a few showers and a cloudy start to the day.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Cloudy in Ork-lund.

I haven't seen the sun, even once, since I got here on Wednesday afternoon.

It hasn't rained though, so I suppose that is a bonus.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

'tis a lovely day in Wellington this morning....

[nitpicker1]

Until yesterday we have had 11 days without rain, then 1mm last evening; cold today but it's drizzling with a Easterly - enough so far to show on the East facing windows, but the deck is licking it up and drying it off.

Peas and Broad beans flowering, so is an Artic tomato that failed to set fruit last season but I took cuttings that I brought inside a month ago.

Brassicas are a dead loss: they seem to be miniatures, the sprouting broccoli flower the size of a match box, it's sprouts like cotton buds.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Sunny with the temperature in the mid-teens at my place today.

Two years ago today it was a different story.

Here is a montage photo of the Rimutaka Hill Road between Wairarapa and Wellington, with two years ago today on the left and today on the right....





And this was Wellington as viewed from the Kelburn terminus of the cable car two years ago today....

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

A nice sunny afternoon in Gisborne, although it is now starting to cloud over....

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Some weather pix taken this afternoon up the East Coast north of Gisborne.


Te Araroa with East Cape in the background....




Hicks Bay wharf....




Tokomaru Bay....

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Late winter turns to early spring

Despite a couple of southerlies, the country largely
cruised through its warmest winter since the 1860s.

By MATT STEWART - The Dominion Post | 9:55AM - Saturday, 31 August 2013


PREMIUM ON SHADE: We could be in for another scorching summer, forecasters say, and farm
animals may be searching for shelter from the sun. — PHIL REID/Fairfax NZ.

SCIENTISTS call it "season creep" and, despite a couple of bracing southerly storms, the second half of this winter has resembled a very early spring.

On the back of unseasonably warm days in the past two months, and the past two hot, dry summers, WeatherWatch head analyst Philip Duncan says there is nothing to suggest the country won't be in for another long, hot summer.

In late July the private forecaster declared spring had already sprung.

"It hasn't been much of a winter, both here and in Australia."

Winter had been a balmy affair not because of climate change but because of a lack of southerlies, which was just good fortune or bad luck, depending on your point of view, Mr Duncan said.

But the climate change argument did come into play when the past decade's trend towards warmer winters was taken into account.

Using a motoring analogy, Mr Duncan tentatively predicts spring and summer will be warm and dry.

"It's like winter is a 50km/h zone and we've had spring temperatures in August, and that's like going into the 70km/h zone early but doesn't necessarily mean we'll get to the summer 100km/h zone early. But I think spring is going to be warm and will dry out once the westerlies pick up. Because we're in a neutral pattern, summer is no different — just like the last two summers, it could be very dry again."

The main harbinger for summer hinges on the equinoxal winds that typically cause a breezy chaos in mid-to-late September. If these are extreme and buoyed by temperatures in the 20-plus range, we could be in for another scorching summer, which brings with it the possibility of another big dry and more water restrictions.

Despite farmers being generally well set up by a relatively lush winter, Mr Duncan urged anyone who relied on water for their livelihood to "keep a close eye on the discussion about what summer's going to look like".

Earlier this month, climate scientist Jim Salinger said New Zealand had experienced the mildest winter since records began in the 1860s, with the entire country between 1 and 2 degrees warmer than average.

Wellington had its warmest winter on record, and capital dwellers should get used to less wind and milder weather, he said, with records showing a "warming trend" over time. "The clearest climate warming signal is seen in winter, where temperatures are now 1.1 degrees warmer than they were around 1870," he said.

Although it was too early to get a read on summer, Dr Salinger said above-average sea surface temperatures around the country were part of a largely neutral El Nino/La Nina pattern heralding a warmer, calmer, drier-than-usual spring. Based on his interpretation of British Met Office and US meteorological services data on Australasia, the lower North Island and South Island would be the main benefactors of the fairweather spring.

More highs to the east of the South Island suggested a more arid spring, while the capital also looked likely to benefit from the easing of the traditional, often maddening, onslaught of westerly winds.

"That will be good for Wellington — there'll be less of those roaring spring gales," Dr Salinger said.

OZONE HOLE SLOWLY HEALING UP

NIWA chemistry-climate modeller Olaf Morgenstern is conducting research on how the Antarctic ozone hole affects New Zealand's weather.

Over recent years, the hole has begun slowly healing due to a reduction of ozone- destroying chlorofluorocarbons and other halogenated compounds, which have been mostly banned worldwide.

The record for ozone depletion was set in 2006, but this year, Dr Morgenstern said, the hole was likely to be larger than it had been over some recent years, which were characterised by relatively weak ozone depletion.

The ozone season runs between about late August and November or December so it was hard to give a definitive forecast.

However, low to average heat flux coming from mid- latitudes during winter was "conducive to above-average ozone depletion", he said.

Typically, the ozone hole will break up in November or December. After the break-up, ozone- depleted air will be mixed with mid-latitude air. It is in this late-spring/early-summer season that New Zealand can expect episodes of relatively low ozone and correspondingly elevated UV, which particularly fair-skinned people need to be wary of.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9110378/Late-winter-turns-to-early-spring

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Nature springs into action after warm winter

Record warm winter means more flowers out

By MATT STEWART - The Dominion Post | 11:16AM - Saturday, 07 September 2013


BLOOMING GOOD: Botantic Gardens manager David Sole behind behind an azalea shrub. A warm winter
means there are more flowers than usual. — KENT BLECHYNDEN/Fairfax NZ.

OFFICIALLY the seasons may have just switched to spring, but flowers don't pay attention to calendars.

Well before September 1st, the tulips came out, the magnolias bloomed, the tui trilled and the daffodils flourished — all buoyed by a winter that, despite a clutch of violent southerly storms and bracing fronts, has been rather benign — so much so that NIWA confirmed winter 2013 was the warmest in a century.

Wellington Botanic Garden visitor services officer Charmaine Scott says the balmy climes have put garden staff into a spring spin because the fast-forwarded season could play havoc with the date, already fixed at September 29th, for Tulip Sunday — the launch of the garden's Spring Festival.

"We always spend a couple of months chewing our nails but despite some early flowering we're thinking the tulips may flower when they're meant to."

"It's been a very warm winter so a lot of the plants think it's spring — they're not concerned about the date ... the birds are really enjoying it, they like spring because they're pairing up and there's lots of food available."

"The roses have all got tiny leaves — it feels like we only pruned them yesterday."

Weather forecaster Philip Duncan mused on the fanciful season while forecasting a late-season polar blast this week that will usher in September's notorious equinoctial westerly winds.

"Spring is the starter of life but to me if it was personified it would be a cross between a toddler in the terrible twos or the kid with teenage angst."

"Either way, it's predictably unpredictable."

But despite spring's whimsy, keen outdoorsman and DOC advocate Herb Christophers says it's still his favourite season.

"I love it just because of the return of colour to native bush and the bird song."

The re-emergence of spring is also a boon for Mr Christophers and his pointer/labrador cross Tara — no doubt for different reasons, the pair relish the extended dawn chorus that accompanies the arrival of spring.

There's a few sure-fire signs spring is upon us, including the first cuckoos that come down from near the Solomon Islands to lay eggs in the nests of birds such as grey warblers and whiteheads.

"Lots of kowhai in bloom and flocks of tui are also a good harbinger of spring."

Wellington Botanical Society member Chris Horne has been keeping a close eye on the seasons for nearly 60 years and says with kawakawa in bud and five finger in fruit, this spring is already looking quite lush.

However, the unpredictable phenomenon known as mast seeding stands as a potential bogeyman.

Mast seeding or "masting" is when trees flower, heavily blanketing the forest floor in seeds, producing an explosion in rats, mice and stoats, which eventually prey on native birds.

"Birds nesting during a masting have a hell of a time."

Some ecologists are predicting Eastbourne's black beech forests could mast this spring, which could mean an influx of rodents into the Lower Hutt suburb's back yards.

However, masting also has its benefits — if the flowers of common native shrubs like the hardy taupata and the vibrant karamu fruit heavily this spring, birds will have a field day, increasing both their numbers and those of the plants as the flighted foragers disperse the shrubs' seeds.

Such are the vernal vicissitudes of spring.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-life/9137781/Nature-springs-into-action-after-warm-winter

[nitpicker1]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11122624

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

I've lost a couple of downpipes from the roof guttering this afternoon, but the roof itself is holding up (or should that be down?).

Heaps of trees and fences down around the neighbourhood, although I've come through it okay apart from those downpipes.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Bugger....my neighbour's shed just got demolished by the wind.

Some bits of it are in my backyard.

He'll be pissed off when he gets home from work and sees the damage.


And just as I was typing the above, I looked out my kitchen window and discovered that a big norfolk pine (about twenty metres tall) in my backyard was gone.

I went next door and it has been ripped right out of the ground, roots and all and is lying in my other neighbour's backyard.

But there is absolutely no damage to the boundary fence, or anything next door.

My neighbour said if I don't mind, he'll cut it up for firewood, so I told him to go ahead.

She's a bloody good windstorm, alright.

[Alicat]

Much better in Wellington and the Hutt today. It rained very heavily overnight last night. It hit just after I had arrived home and locked the door behind me. The rain was so loud and heavy I had to keep turning television up so I could hear the News.

[nitpicker1]

http://www.metservice.com/maps-radar/rain-radar/all-new-zealand  ? 

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

It's a grey day in Wairarapa....and I've gotta start work at 9:55am.

I might wander down town to 10 O'clock Cookie Café & Bakery for a yummy cooked breakfast before work.

I've got them well-trained in there.....I simply wander in and sit down at a table and within a few minutes they put a coffee & breakfast in front of me....

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Wairarapa the sunny spot this weekend

The Dominion Post | 12:22PM - Friday, 04 October 2013



IF you want sunshine this weekend, head for the Wairarapa.

Clouds that cover Wellington and Kapiti this weekend were not expected to reach over the Rimutaka ranges, leaving Wairarapa bathing in sunlight, MetService forecaster Dan Corbett said.

"Everyone who goes east, it will be like ‘wow, I have landed in another country’."

Parts of Wairarapa this weekend will reach 23 degrees celcius tomorrow then 21°C on Sunday.

It's not all bad in Wellington though.

Despite some cloud, a few patches of sunlight are expected to peek through later tomorrow, when  a 17°C high is forecast. Sunday is similar though the high is expected to hit 15°C.

Wairarapa's sunny weather is all good news for those heading over the hill for the 11th annual Rally Wairarapa, which is being held in stages between Eketahuna and Masterton tomorrow.

Course clerk Dave Davies said crowds of about 1000 people were expected at the free event.

There should be a good show of support for Masterton driver Richard Mason who had now won more national championship rallies than any other driver, setting the record at the recent Vantage Aluminium Possum Bourne Memorial Rally.

He was this weekend chasing a record-beating fifth national title, and a win at Rally Wairarapa would likely secure that honour.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9244889/Wairarapa-the-sunny-spot-this-weekend

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

A lovely spring day in Wairarapa today....

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Another glorious day in Paradise (Wairarapa), although it clouded over late afternoon (Hood Aerodrome is only about a kilometre down this river)....





In the Mangaroa Valley....





The Hutt Valley looking towards the mouth of the Hutt River....





Passing through Petone....





Travelling along the western shoreline of Wellington Harbour....