Archive for August, 2009
- 21 August – Anniversary of Meteorological Service in NZ - August 28th, 2009 , Written By: Bob McDavitt | No Comments
- The Thunderstorm in History - August 27th, 2009 , Written By: Erick Brenstrum | No Comments
- How Lows and Highs move - August 24th, 2009 , Written By: Chris Webster | 1 Comment
- The mid-July northern low - August 4th, 2009 , Written By: Jonathan Tunster | No Comments
On 21 August in 1861, Dr. Charles Knight was appointed the first Director of Meteorological Stations in New Zealand.
One of the pleasures of reading history is coming across stories about the weather. Thunderstorms often figure in these. One of the most dramatic examples was recorded in the sixth century AD, by Gregory, Bishop of Tours, in his Historia Francorum (The History of the Franks). In AD 536 there were three rulers of Frankish [...]
In my blog post about winds aloft there is a loop of satellite images for a week in winter 2008. It shows that the big cloud features in the mid-latitudes typically travel from west to east. In other words, the features you see on weather maps affecting New Zealand have usually started out roughly in the area of southern Australia. There are exceptions to [...]
On the night of 17th July and early on the 18th, New Zealand was affected by a fast-moving and rapidly deepening depression originating in the north Tasman Sea. Sustained southwesterly winds of more than 60 knots were recorded in Colville Channel as the low passed by. Severe Weather Warnings were issued for wind in Coromandel/Great [...]