MetService Blog

When there is an ash cloud, you have to take extra precautions

WMO TURNS SIXTY

As the cicada season moves out and the mushroom season moves in, people have been commenting on the high humidity we had in February.  This is no great surprise: the sea-surface temperature of the seas around New Zealand reach their annual peak in late February/early March, and the sea is the source for most of the water vapour in our air

MetService is forecasting that the anticyclone moving slowly over New Zealand over the next few days is likely to bring the hottest days of  summer ( so far) along for the NZI Sevens in Wellington.

Sunny At the Sevens (this image taken in 2008)

The last week in January 2010 will be remembered by many over the central North Island for the frequent thunderstorms that developed in the afternoon, often lasting well into the evening. Conditions changed little during the week with a slack pressure gradient over the North Island allowing afternoon sea breezes to combine with abundant low level moisture, triggering heavy showers and thunderstorms inland. Many of these storms were slow moving, prompting a number of Severe Thunderstorm Warnings as radar detected torrential rain and hail in some cells.

It must have been an insightful man who decided to build the new meteorological office on the end of the ridge above the Botanical Gardens. If you are lucky you can observe some beautiful meteorology from the roof of the building. The Director at the time, Dr John Gabities, probably had a big say in the matter. Being a meteorologist, he would have appreciated the value of that siting. 

One way of defining summer in NZ is calling it the three months December, January and February. By that definition we have just passed the half-way mark. What has the weather been like at your place so far this summer?  

Feels like temperature, to the nearest degree, gives an idea of how cool or warm the air feels to us.

MetService hopes that all involved in this year’s bash have fun, and as I look at the MetService data for the day I can see that the weather is likely to turn into two parts.

I received an inquiry by way of the Editor of the Bay of Plenty Times from Laurie Sanders of Tauranga with some photographs of an interesting cloud formation. Laurie saw it as he was going to work southeast-bound on 15th Avenue at the Cameron Street traffic lights at 7:40 am on Wednesday, 9 December 2009. He took several photos, and I have reproduced two of them here with his permission.