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This December has been bizarre in terms of contrasting rainfall and (particularly) cloud/sunshine anomalies, and for the latter I would rate it as probably the most extreme of its type since January 1956.
It has been less so with temperatures, thought the charts at Climate Explorer show the SW quadrant of the South Island as more than 2.0C above average, with a deficit of over 1.0C in part of Hawkes Bay -
(to see a graph, go to https://secure.niwa.co.nz/climate-explorer/home.do , choose National as the selection level, go to Temperature maps, Month to date and view the entry for 20120101; if this gets removed on the 2nd , then look at the latest entry in Temperature maps, Monthly mean).
Rainfalls totals were above average for almost the entire country north of a line from Ashburton to Westport, with Takaka (Kotinga) getting about 700% of its average amount, while most of Otago and Southland had less than 20% of average, a few parts there not even managing 10%. A chart for this can be found in a similar way to that used for temperatures.
Sunshine readings for the month (provisional) made a nonsense of some of the normal relationships between sites. This list of totals has colour codings for those entries substantially different from normal (red=above, blue=below, bold for extreme cases):
Tekapo 266.7 Invercargill 250.9 (2nd highest on record) Dunedin 221.1 Akaroa 210.4 Mt Cook 210.1 Hokitika 204.4 Paraparaumu 203.0 Appleby, Nelson 195.8 Franz Josef 195.7 Whakatane 191.3 Christchurch 186 (31st entry late, estimated) Wellington 174.4Blenheim 167.0 (record low) Waipawa 161.2Kaitaia 142 (31st estimated) Hamilton 135.7 (lowest on record) Mangere, Auckland 132.0 (ditto) Dargaville 124.3.
Up to date records for Napier, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Alexandra and Queenstown are not available on CliFlo yet, but the last 2 should later show large surpluses for the month, while the site at Cromwell would probably have been close to 300 hours if the EWS were working.
Central Otago has not always had such a favourable early summer (or whole summer) response to La Nina situations. The current season, if continued, may be somewhat like 1937-38, when from October to March very dry and usually sunny conditions prevailed there apart from December, which was rather cloudy.
On the other hand, the La Nina of 1964-65, which ended after summer, was cloudy and humid in Central for December and January, particularly the latter, and conditions were much better in the North Island. A cool cloudy February dominated by southwesterlies made the summer overall rather poor for almost the entire South Island. See these reports:
For central New Zealand, this December has been vastly different from Decemebr 1988, when a strong La Nina event was well underway. That month was warm, dry and very sunny for Wellington, Nelson and Blenheim, to cite 3 examples.
Very interesting post! Quite remarkable how sunny southern NZ was in Dec, but equally contrasted with the abnormal cloudy conditions in Akld and the top of the south.
Just goes to show how much variability there can be in NZ!
So, i would say BA has been hot as always is in december, I dont think this december has been hotter or colder than average december, all decembers are usually uncomfortable and hot, though i remmeber december 2010 as hotter than this one, if im not mistaken (sanfel will probably correct me with this).
Hehe, I agree with you on this one, though I don't have the data to back it up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SophieLL
This december had the awful hot days, but what bothered me the most were the hot nights, we ve had some of those when i couldnt sleep and was showering 3 or 4 times a night with cold water, ugh! probably tonight is gonna be one of those nights but we are in january, so.
Also, those 7 celsius are totally unusual and i dont even remmeber the 7 celsius! must ve been the morning of december 1 (when temp was 7/24 according to wunderground), but i dont even remember it got that cold!
Where did you get the data from? Wunderground? Those 7 C seem odd to me too. The lowset low must have been something near 12 C, if I remember correctly, and that must have been precisely that first day of December. 36 C sounds a bit high too, but I'm not sure. Probably was 34. BTW, 29 C / 16 C would be 1 C above for the max and 2 below for the min, because the avg is 28 C / 18 C. Anyway, I don't particularly trust sites like wunderground, the weather channel, etc. when it comes to forecasts or data about countries other than the USA or Canada. It seems to me that they base the data on more indirect methods, rather than consulting the local weather service (in this case the Argentinian).
Quote:
Originally Posted by SophieLL
Also, december have had much more rain than november (that had virutally none) so thats a plus, but overall i hate it, cause, well, its december and its hot.
Yes, I'm missing winter... It's much more pleasant.
i thought sydney summers were like Buenos Aires, but it seems they are colder
We are around 3C cooler on average in December in terms of average daily maximums. However, averaged across the year, our daily maximums are very similar given our winters are warmer than yours .
This December, based on maximums alone, has been very abnormal - the coolest December since 1960 and perception wise very cool due to more recent warmer months the last 10 years or so.
well, maybe we should start a thread about this, but wundergound its weird! if you search "Buenos aires, argentina" it always says 4 or 5 celsius less than real temp (sometimes 10!), and the correct temperature is found in Ezeiza airport! Sometimes, the temp outside is 30 celsius (i mean, thats what it says in tv for example) and you go to ezeiza and it says "30 c" but in buenos aires it says "23 c" . Do this to prove what im saying, go now and see the forecast for both ezeiza and buenos aires. You will see forecast for next wednesday in ezeiza is something like 20/32, sunny and in buenos aires is 20/23, rain!!!!
To clarify, ezeiza is Buenos Aires airport and temperatures should be exactly the same in both, but frequently buenos aires is waaay below in celsius than ezeiza (and that real temp, lol). Thats been calling my attention big time about wunderground. They should fix that!
To collect this data, i used wunderground. Surprisingly, both ezeiza and BA had the same data for december-
Maybe i shouldnt use wunderground anymore cause it is so weird, what page do u chose sanfel, to see weather? whats the page of local weather service?
Very interesting post! Quite remarkable how sunny southern NZ was in Dec, but equally contrasted with the abnormal cloudy conditions in Akld and the top of the south.
Just goes to show how much variability there can be in NZ!
Indeed - and it's extremely odd to have Franz Josef (near mountains, daylight reduction plus its wet climate restricts it an average of about 1575 hrs/year) ahead of Blenheim (longterm average 2455 hours, Dec average 247).
well, maybe we should start a thread about this, but wundergound its weird! if you search "Buenos aires, argentina" it always says 4 or 5 celsius less than real temp (sometimes 10!), and the correct temperature is found in Ezeiza airport! Sometimes, the temp outside is 30 celsius (i mean, thats what it says in tv for example) and you go to ezeiza and it says "30 c" but in buenos aires it says "23 c" . Do this to prove what im saying, go now and see the forecast for both ezeiza and buenos aires. You will see forecast for next wednesday in ezeiza is something like 20/32, sunny and in buenos aires is 20/23, rain!!!!
To clarify, ezeiza is Buenos Aires airport and temperatures should be exactly the same in both, but frequently buenos aires is waaay below in celsius than ezeiza (and that real temp, lol). Thats been calling my attention big time about wunderground. They should fix that!
To collect this data, i used wunderground. Surprisingly, both ezeiza and BA had the same data for december-
Maybe i shouldnt use wunderground anymore cause it is so weird, what page do u chose sanfel, to see weather? whats the page of local weather service?
But apparently they don't show summaries of every month like the ones we are talking about in this thread. (I haven't found them, at least).
They do show the current conditions for many stations across Argentina (though not all of them, I don't know why).
Sophie, Buenos Aires and Ezeiza don't have exactly the same values, though that difference 20/32 and 20/23 seems too much, I agree.
Ezeiza is cooler in the mornings and a little warmer (but not so much) in the afternoons. Overall it's cooler than BA, since Ezeiza is outside the heat-island effect that affects BA.
But apparently they don't show summaries of every month like the ones we are talking about in this thread. (I haven't found them, at least).
They do show the current conditions for many stations across Argentina (though not all of them, I don't know why).
Sophie, Buenos Aires and Ezeiza don't have exactly the same values, though that difference 20/32 and 20/23 seems too much, I agree.
Ezeiza is cooler in the mornings and a little warmer (but not so much) in the afternoons. Overall it's cooler than BA, since Ezeiza is outside the heat-island effect that affects BA.
yeah, but what i mean is that ezeiza haves the same values as the temp that is in TV (say in tv says temp in BA is 32c, so it says in ezeiza in wunderground) but Buenos Aires in wunderground temps are NOTHING like it says in tv and are often ridiculous. Have you seen the forecast to buenos aires in wunderground? it says on wednesday max temps is gonna be 25, while in ezeiza it says max temp is gonna be 32! I mean isnt that weird?? Anyways, its obvious Buenos Aires is the one that is wrong, cause temp usually doesnt match real temp, i observed this many times.
Im gonna be looking at that other page now for weather. Too bad it doesnt have the averages and all.
This December was the second warmest ever with average low/highs of 39/50F.
The average low was warmer than last December's average high (37).
Oh, and 2011 was the warmest year ever here. With the coolest July in two decades.
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. Do this to prove what im saying, go now and see the forecast for both ezeiza and buenos aires. You will see forecast for next wednesday in ezeiza is something like 20/32, sunny and in buenos aires is 20/23, rain!!!! 
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