Hi all

I've split this topic up - it looked like it was creating a bit of confusion with people posting current conditions against the post. We have another daily topic for those, which I have moved the posts to. I'm not locking the topic at this point in case someone wishes to make some other comment against the post, but please do post your current conditions in the daily weather updates topic (url below) - thanks

http://www.localweather.net.nz/smf/daily-weather-updates/
 

Yes I agree Babs - things have got back to normal finally, cool mornings, clear skies with southerlies, the leaves are falling, the colours of the trees are bright and full of seasonal warmth and glow - if that makes any sense

Depends on your timespan Babs. I'll confine myself to Kelburn records (1928 to present).

There has a been a noteworthy overall improvement in the autumn (March-May) conditions since about 1980 - a combination of slightly warmer temperatures, less rainfall and more sunshine. This has been most marked in March and May, slightly less so in April.

There are always some exceptions though: here are some for March within the "better" period:

March 1984 - mild, but cloudier and wetter.
March 1987 - very cool, quite cloudy and wetter.
March 1997 - cooler and wetter.
March 2005 - mild, cloudier and wetter
March 2006 - cooler and a little cloudier and wetter
March 2012 (!) - cooler, much cloudier, slightly wetter

(against that though, giving a combined score for temp, rain and sun, all but 2 Marches in 1998-2011 scored well, with 2003 being outstanding).

The improvement in Aprils over the earlier years is less noticeable, with some considerable fluctuations.

For May, there has been a significant contrast between 1940-1979 (many unpleasant months) and 1980-present.

Exceptions since 1980: 1989 - unsettled with higher rainfall and lower sun.
                                      1992 - extremely cold (coldest since 1959), and rather cloudy.
                                      2009 - cold, showery and wet though normal sun.
                                      2010 - very cloudy, wet.

Back in the 70s I remember a colleague saying "May holidays - time for some bad weather". This would probably be based on some particularly poor runs of Mays  in the 1950s and the latter half of the 60s.

I could post some charts for each month and for Autumn if anyone is interested. They show scores rather than absolute stats. based on deviations from average over a standardised scale.

Yes, 1986 would make sense. You missed a lot of inferior Mays and some not-so-good Marches and autumns prior to then, mainly prior to 1980 as I mentioned. But it's not the specific suburbs making any difference - the whole local region has had the same changes.