More issues with Dunedin temps 7th January

[JennyLeez]

Not for the first time some Dunedin residents are up in arms about the local temperatures and where they are taken.

One example was as recent as the weekend where even though it was 34 degrees at Dunedin airport the city hit 26 degrees officially. Some locals were frustrated by the low reading and that it was much hotter with their own temperature recordings.

Back on Christmas Day the official reading was 21 degrees in the city and yet other thermometers across the city had it nudging 30 degrees in the shade and remaining there well into the evening.

So once again the question is being posed of where is the best spot in the city to give a good indicator of what the temperature really is and why is it unique to Dunedin?

This debate has been discussed for decades and some suggestions for a new location have been north east Dunedin, the Botanic Gardens and also Maori Hill.

Currently there are three official weather stations -  one on top of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in the Octagon, a Niwa-run one at Musselburgh and one at Dunedin Airport.

If you're a Dunedinite have you noticed this before and if you'd like a change where should the temperature be taken?

We'd all love it if this could be resolved!
Weatherwatch.co.nz

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[Rwood]

Weatherwatch.co.nz[/i]

This is just a typical example of the kind of stuff locals in every significant NZ town put up from time to time, each trying in effect to prove that their place is actually located several degrees north of where it currently finds itself. There's nothing "unique" about the Dunedin case - the TV temperatures at Paraparaumu were changed to reflect a spot well away ftom the coast and certainly not representative of the town as a whole. There are many more such case histories.

My reply to WW (not published yet):

"The big irony of all this is that if you take night temperatures and overall daily means into account, Musselburgh over-represents Dunedin's "warmth"! A variety of good-quality sites monitored by NIWA or MetService, in locations near to or even a considerable distance north of Dunedin record lower mean temperatures. This is because Musselburgh's night minima are very high and thus more than compensate for modest daytime maxima. At the airport - which is not part of the city in any sense of course - the mean daily maximum is 1.3C higher than Musselburgh, but the mean daily minimum is 3.0C lower. It is meaningless to take some tarmac or building warmed spot in the CBD as valid, and equally so for home measurement setups where houses and other large objects radiate warmth at too close a range and do not allow truly free open exposure to the ambient air.

I (and various relatives) spent years in Dunedin at various addresses, and it is a misnomer to even take the sea-level temperatures as representative, given the hilly nature of the place. There are lots of cold areas to be found.

Next, the locals will be trying prove Dunedin is warmer than Nelson....

[Arnie]

Yep it is an age old stories in many localities, airport verses the city.
Gisborne is also a prime example of this. Since I was knee high to a grass hopper this argument has been going on.
I remember their local radio station putting up a weather station above their building many many years ago and trying to convince TVNZ to use their readings but of course there was much argument concerning the city humidity plus concrete and iron reflecting the heat etc. So it never happened.

The different forums have covered this topic many times but it is good to cover it again for new members and our up and coming station owners

Agree with your answer Rwood you go for it

[Rwood]

Thanks Arnie - perhaps a lot of people would be happy if we just added 4C to "official" temperature readings everywhere and left it at that! 

My main reply still hasn't been published at WW yet ...

[JennyLeez]

LOL Rupert, you are probably right

[deepsouthweather]

Dunedin's situation with its observations is similar to Wellington's. Both being surrounded in hills and also area's of coast and inland valleys meaning the temperature range varies significantly. Its a bit of a no win really. I have issues with Invercargill's siting out at the airport effected by the dominating W to SW winds which give us some very underwhelming metservice maximum's especially in these conditions but everyone in most towns as already pointed out has issues in some form or another especially when airports are used.

[Mark]

Same here in Chch it can be rainning say in Bechenham and sunny here with big temp Differences.

[Rwood]

Those are "spot" situations - it's the averaging out of the differences that matters in the long run. Many of them will simply cancel each other out.

[Rwood]

You clearly haven't seen the records (and posts about it I have made elsewhere) that show that Invercargill Aero ran temp. data in parallel with a town site for a lengthy period in the past, and the difference in Tmeans was only 0.6C in the town site's favour! The town site was not a "cold" one and agreed with older sites used around the city.

The same difference of only 0.6C applies between Ch'ch Aero and the Gardens site. A poster on another forum has pointed out the absurdity of the article in the Otago Daily Times - look at the thermometer placing!!

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/241453/hot-under-collar-over-city-temperatures

Give me strength!!!

BTW - if people ever looked past temperature readings, they would realise that (as an example) sunshine recording values in this country are far more contentious for various reasons. {Apart from Whakatane, Invercargill and to a lesser extent Dunedin are flattered by the numbers being reported - and there are quite a number of other sites in that same situation}

[deepsouthweather]

Yes, true. My average from the last 4 years agrees with this, it too is 0.6c in favour of town for Invercargill. That down here isn't the issue for me.  It is when lightish breezes (Like a seabreeze) are in (S through to W breeze's). A couple of weeks ago I had a difference of 5c. Obviously the difference in maximums for that day wernt that big but I know it upset a few down here who felt the airport's high was a bit on the low side!!

[Rwood]

What the devil are they trying to prove? My front gate area and nearby street cooks on a sunny afternoon with a weak southerly breeze, because of sheltering - so what?

When I lived in In'gill and Dunedin I couldn't have cared less about the temperatures - it was the comparatively low sunshine quota that bugged me. Both places should be happy that their reported totals in that field are rather optimistic.

[deepsouthweather]

Yes, true. My average from the last 4 years agrees with this, it too is 0.6c in favour of town for Invercargill. That down here isn't the issue for me.  It is when lightish breezes (Like a seabreeze) are in (S through to W breeze's). A couple of weeks ago I had a difference of 5c. Obviously the difference in maximums for that day wernt that big but I know it upset a few down here who felt the airport's high was a bit on the low side!!

What the devil are they trying to prove? My front gate area and nearby street cooks on a sunny afternoon with a weak southerly breeze, because of sheltering - so what?

When I lived in In'gill and Dunedin I couldn't have cared less about the temperatures - it was the comparatively low sunshine quota that bugged me. Both places should be happy that their reported totals in that field are rather optimistic.
[/quote]


I dont think its about "sheltered places" its more about perception and maybe a bit of pride. Nothing wrong with that. Invercargill does get a bad wrap weatherwise, not nearly as bad as it's made out to be. Myself being a wellingtonian and having lived there most of my life always found wellingtons weather more fustrating than Invercargill's, You cant hide from that cool strong breeze in the capital which ruins many a day no matter how much sun there is!!!

[Rwood]

What the devil are they trying to prove? My front gate area and nearby street cooks on a sunny afternoon with a weak southerly breeze, because of sheltering - so what?

When I lived in In'gill and Dunedin I couldn't have cared less about the temperatures - it was the comparatively low sunshine quota that bugged me. Both places should be happy that their reported totals in that field are rather optimistic.


I dont think its about "sheltered places" its more about perception and maybe a bit of pride. Nothing wrong with that. Invercargill does get a bad wrap weatherwise, not nearly as bad as it's made out to be. Myself being a wellingtonian and having lived there most of my life always found wellingtons weather more fustrating than Invercargill's, You cant hide from that cool strong breeze in the capital which ruins many a day no matter how much sun there is!!!

My family shifted to Invercargill when I was 8. I spent 17 years in In'gill. and Dunedin,  and nearly all of the rest of my life before and afterwards (over 50 years) in W'gton. I quite liked both places in some respects (and still did last time I was down that way), especially when enjoying student years in Dunedin, but ... while I got regularly lashed by Invercargill's W/SW-ers biking to school (or anywhere from where we lived towards the main part of town to the south and west of us), and bitten by Dunedin's unfriendly north-easterlies, it was the cloudiness that bugged me. I could quote various numbers to make that point, but don't feel the need to.

Nowhere in NZ has enough sun to satisfy my "Mediterranean" tastes, but those two places fell far short. Dull spells got me down, and it was the first thing I noticed even as an 8-yo, not the slightly cooler temps. In all the intervening years I have got even less tolerant of cloudiness and W'gton has fallen well short in the last few years, but I would never revert to living in a climate with less sun. And don't forget In'gill's "rain day" count, either.

Magic to me are some holidays that produced heaps of sun, most of them out of NZ, though a few of the numbebr taken in Central Otago were useful. Best of all so far was a run of 23 sunny days (out of 23) in South America, mainly Brazil, with no rain. I could easily have tolerated many more of them without getting sick of it.

If I had a rerun of my working life I would probably opt for Australia for the above reasons - and for those same reasons no imaginable kind of salary could have lured me to the UK.