New Zealand Local Weather Forum
Weather Discussion => Historical => Topic started by: Rwood on October 01, 2016, 01:30:31 PM
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A very unpleasant side-effect of blocking scenarios with a succession of lows and troughs over the North Island, with Wellington faring exceptionally badly. The 79.6 hours of sunshine was 25 less than the previous low, and was a little under 49% of the average amount - no month in the 89-year Kelburn record had previously had less than about 53% of its average. Worse still was that it dead-heated with May 1942 with only 23.7% of the possible recordable amount. The monthly total was only just over half of July's!
Given that the month also featured a southerly storm early on, I rate it as easily the worst September I have experienced here, and those numbers show that it was also the (equal) gloomiest month in the entire record. If this had occurred in earlier times when the reports and stats. were place in periodicals like the NZ Gazette and I had come across it in such a source, I would have initially assumed there had been a misprint somewhere ... but the supporting commentary was good then and daily stats for Wellington were published in a summary table until early 1943.
The whole of the North Island and a portion of the South Island from Nelson to coastal South Canterbury was also in sunshine deficit varying from moderate to substantial, but I'll put up some more numbers when they are available.
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That is a depressing total, indeed- more like one would expect in parts of NW Europe in Winter.
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Ah well win some lose some, we can't always have what we want and even countries with sunfilled days are getting more cloud and rain, I mean look at our neighbour Australia over the past few days and they are used to blue blue skies with warm temperatures
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It's only part of OZ though - it's a big country. Some parts were less sunny and settled than usual in September but I'll still take their totals - Brisbane 231 Perth 238 Sydney 224 Darwin 259. Melbourne poorish on 147 though.
Even in my youth I wouldn't have been prepared to live and work in a really cloudy climate - not for any amount of money.
The concerning thing is that the kind of blocking that happened in September is becoming more frequent and permits more extreme conditions of every kind.
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In the range alright - for December averages we have Kew 21.5%, Shanklin 25.5%, Bognor 28.5% {Shanklin sunniest UK location on an annual basis}.
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That is a depressing total, indeed- more like one would expect in parts of NW Europe in Winter.
In the range alright - for December averages we have Kew 21.5%, Shanklin 25.5%, Bognor 28.5% {Shanklin sunniest UK location on an annual basis}.
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I must admit that had to look Shanklin up to see where in the SE it was! Isle of Wight- of course!
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In the range alright - for December averages we have Kew 21.5%, Shanklin 25.5%, Bognor 28.5% {Shanklin sunniest UK location on an annual basis}.
I must admit that had to look Shanklin up to see where in the SE it was! Isle of Wight- of course!
Lol re Shanklin - I think Bognor is better known ... {George V's dying comment helped cement that in perhaps ...}
To avoid the impression that Kelburn's low was anywhere near a national record - here are a few numbers in descending order (for sites with published horizon data) -
Haast Feb 1966 19.1% (70 out of 366 recordable)
Palm Nth Oct 1983 17.4% (67 of 385)
Timaru Mar 1979 16.0% (59 of 368)
Greymouth Oct 1988 15.0% (57 of 379)
Invercargill Jun 1935 14.2% (35 of 244)
Waimate Dec 1959 13.4% (60 of 450)
There are quite a few entries at 20% or lower, Invercargill appearing 5 times, Waimate and Greymouth 3 times.
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My goodness, those are depressing figures indeed.
And LOL re George V's dying utterance!