During spells of fine sunny weather, there are often many comments about the air temperatures shown on our web site, where they are measured, and opinions about them. In this Blog post I will explain the reasons for the location of our weather stations. I will also offer some help about how you can get some use from the information they provide.

Introduction 

This short article is in response to an emailed complaint about temperatures displayed on the Christchurch Towns & Cities page on Thursday evening, 24 May 2012.

Sent: Thursday, 24 May 2012 10:26 p.m.
To: Enquiries
Subject: Christchurch weather issues!

Dear sir/madam,

Written by Ross Marsden, Meteorologist

On the afternoon of Monday 19 July 2010, a neat set of four persistent contrails moved across the Cook Strait area.  NASA's  MODIS Rapid Response System captured the contrails in the image stream from the Aqua space craft which was over Wellington at about 2:20 pm. You can see the image on the MODIS web site here:  http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?subset=NewZealand.2010200.aqua.1km  Here’s part of the MODIS image.

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 himself, he would have appreciated the value of that siting.  At lunch time on Friday (22 January 2010), I was on the roof and noticed a little drama unfolding on the harbour and took a photo with my cell phone.

Red sky at night, Shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, Sailor’s warning. I'm not going to argue about shepherds and sailors; that’s not important here. The questions are: “Is it a useful saying? Does is work? If it works, why?” And, “Why is the sky blue?”

Cumulonimbus cloud is not a common part of the Wellington cloudscape ...

Clouds