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I guess that data has little commercial value once averages are established, even so , allowing inconsistencies and gaps doesn't seem like good practice (or good science).
Central and the Mackenzie have provided me with some spectacular days and weather over the years. We go down 2 or 3 times a year and I still find myself amazed at the quality of the light and the differing climatic conditions. The character of the Mackenzie Country has changed a bit over the years.
I'm hoping the Mackenzie won't change too much, especially around Tekapo, a place I'm very fond of. One weather feature I enjoy in the hinterland (Central through to the Mackenzie) is what I call "dry rain", which occurs near the boundary zone between wet and dry conditions, when there is some northwest overspill from the mountains. Light spots falling in air at a fairly low humidity, on dry ground, but moist enough to give a sense of freshness, and a wafty warmth from the NW air. Driving from the main road towards Ohau a while back gave me the full range, with no rain at the junction, but steady moderate rain at the lodge.
Ok. You believe that Invercargill's manual values are reading too high and EWS values more acceptable to which I think the opposite.
As for "thick" high cloud, we've had several days (or months more like) of that here, yet the airport SC recorder shows an daily total of about 10 hours when in reality we've had around 2 - 3 hours so how can you prove that EWS can be "judged accurately" and manual in some other cases?
One day we had quite thick high cloud which showed visibably on the SCR about 1 hour of sun but the recorder showed 10 hours which was wrong of coursel
What about Albany which's currrently showing much (mostly) higher sun readings than Mangere?
I sent an email to NIWA a few weeks ago and they said the Mangere one is more representive of South Auckland whereas the North Auckland (Albany) is for the north with an 24km difference between the two.
I actually asked if I should dismiss the Mangere site and were told in no terms to dismiss the Mangere values and to stick with the Albany values as this isn't really representive that of Sth Auckland...
Ok. You believe that Invercargill's manual values are reading too high and EWS values more acceptable to which I think the opposite.
As for "thick" high cloud, we've had several days (or months more like) of that here, yet the airport SC recorder shows an daily total of about 10 hours when in reality we've had around 2 - 3 hours so how can you prove that EWS can be "judged accurately" and manual in some other cases?
One day we had quite thick high cloud which showed visibably on the SCR about 1 hour of sun but the recorder showed 10 hours which was wrong of coursel
What about Albany which's currrently showing much (mostly) higher sun readings than Mangere?
I sent an email to NIWA a few weeks ago and they said the Mangere one is more representive of South Auckland whereas the North Auckland (Albany) is for the north with an 24km difference between the two.
I actually asked if I should dismiss the Mangere site and were told in no terms to dismiss the Mangere values and to stick with the Albany values as this isn't really representive that of Sth Auckland...
Albany is in precisely the same boat as Whakatane and virtually all the other EWSs. Its readings are too high, period. With all due respect, the expertise present in NIWA on this subject these days is not great.
Every monthly summary that comes out - the graphs are distorted by having to draw anomalous circles around EWSs to cater for their unnaturally high values - Ohakune, Te Kuiti, Taumarunui, Balclutha (a really preposterous case), Ashburton, the list goes on. Recent attempts to get EWS readings at kelburn have been put on hold because the values were too high! (Presumably local observer commonsense applied, while the other tinpot locations were probably quite happy to have their climate data overhyped).
I'll certainly take note of the views of a very experienced observer at Nelson who has been in that game for decades. He in turn gets feedback from observers around the country, and they agree with him. He dismisses the EWS stuff outright.
As I said to you in past notes, Invercargill is the only unexplained case where EWS readings are lower than the manual ones. The other 3 I noted were all due to reduced exposure. There are certainly ways in which the old C/S manual equipment can overread. There has been no positive proof to date that the In'gill manual readings are OK. Given that the "bottom line" is the most important factor for Met Service these days,and the consequent staff ceilings and reduction in observer numbers, there are fewer and less regular quality checks done at the sites.
I don't care if you respect my opinions or not - I've been looking at this stuff for a long time now and have correctly anticipated the discovery of errors and bad data in the past time and time again.
I’m not disrespecting your opinion at all. We've certainly, by far, debated this before but with “current” updated data, NIWA seems to be more certain that the, for example, Albany site is showing “correct” data, compared to Mangere, whereas your opinion somewhat differs meaning that there’s nothing wrong with the EWS equipment in some areas and the reverse, especially in manual values, in some regions, if you know what I mean.
The same applies to Invercargill’s EWS vs. manual values. NIWA said the EWS somewhat under-reads and manual over-reads BUT the manual values will stop soon as like you said previously, it’s too costly to maintain. The joys of computer-generated humans!
I've been studying, closely, Albany's data and have found some quite disparaging differences. On totally overcast days at the Mangere site, the Albany site shows some sun – around the one to two hour mark. In some months no “overcast” days has been recorded for the former whereas quite a few at the latter.
I've been in touch with BOM re Sydney's sunshine, and other centres re some days failing to show totals, and they said a lot of sites is currently showing desprencies which confirms my estimation that Sydney’s SC recorder (at the airport) over-reads on many partly cloudy/high cloud days.
In reference to the earlier 10 hr vs. 1 hr error comment - I fired off an email to BOM saying there were no way we had 10 hours of sun as it were on a Saturday, remembering it as being very cloudy and even the difference between Bondi & the airport shouldn’t have been that great given seeing a huge bank of thick high cloud remaining above the basin all day until late evening & they replied back a few days later saying the SC reading were in error so adjusted the reading accordingly. I’ve repeatedly asked if they’re planning to replace SCRs with EWS equipment – no response so far. Will keep on badgering them until I get an answer!
I’m not disrespecting your opinion at all. We've certainly, by far, debated this before but with “current” updated data, NIWA seems to be more certain that the, for example, Albany site is showing “correct” data, compared to Mangere, whereas your opinion somewhat differs meaning that there’s nothing wrong with the EWS equipment in some areas and the reverse, especially in manual values, in some regions, if you know what I mean.
The same applies to Invercargill’s EWS vs. manual values. NIWA said the EWS somewhat under-reads and manual over-reads BUT the manual values will stop soon as like you said previously, it’s too costly to maintain. The joys of computer-generated humans!
I've been studying, closely, Albany's data and have found some quite disparaging differences. On totally overcast days at the Mangere site, the Albany site shows some sun – around the one to two hour mark. In some months no “overcast” days has been recorded for the former whereas quite a few at the latter.
I've been in touch with BOM re Sydney's sunshine, and other centres re some days failing to show totals, and they said a lot of sites is currently showing desprencies which confirms my estimation that Sydney’s SC recorder (at the airport) over-reads on many partly cloudy/high cloud days.
In reference to the earlier 10 hr vs. 1 hr error comment - I fired off an email to BOM saying there were no way we had 10 hours of sun as it were on a Saturday, remembering it as being very cloudy and even the difference between Bondi & the airport shouldn’t have been that great given seeing a huge bank of thick high cloud remaining above the basin all day until late evening & they replied back a few days later saying the SC reading were in error so adjusted the reading accordingly. I’ve repeatedly asked if they’re planning to replace SCRs with EWS equipment – no response so far. Will keep on badgering them until I get an answer!
I do not think NIWA is in any position to pronounce on Albany. Unless its numbers "tone down", they will end up establishing it as sunny as Gisborne or even possibly Napier - that's simply climatologically absurd. More significantly silly results are coming from EWSs all over the place - Canterbury, where high cloud is too often getting logged as sunshine, central North Island, on and on. The Invercargill is the ONLY place that's on the other side of the ledger (exposure details rule out what would otherwise be extra cases for Palm Nth, Stratford and Wallaceville).
I know I will eventually be vindicated on this stuff - I've been noticing things since about 1953, and some of the amendments didn't happen for many years later. Somewhat ironically, Invercargill daily sun readings were my first case. The local monthly reports gave an annual total of about 1740 hours - but the later monthly summaries and annual reports in the Gazette etc showed the value after central checking (which hasn't been done since the lateish 80s!) to be only about 1605.
I never bothered telling Met. about the typos or calculation errors in their averages to 1950 - together with over-optimistic means for many places due to a shortish period of sound records and an unusually sunny epoch prior, the "normals" were unrealistically high for many places and gave a badly distorted assessment in the annul summaries of the years in the 1950s. I realised at the time that something was clearly amiss.
November's weather is not cold, but cold weather in December.
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