December 2011 Weather Summary (records, temperature, rainfall, days)
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Mean sunshine hours per day: 6.2 (to be updated)
Days with nil sunshine: 7
A cool, wet, gloomy month. Bitterly disappointing for me -- I'll be glad to erase all memory of this month. It had hardly any redeeming features.
Of particularly note is the very low (absolute, not mean) monthly maximum of 26.3 C. Only Dec 1967 had a lower monthly maximum and the records for this site only go back to the 1950s, so it may well be the second lowest ever.
Also note that nearly one-in-four days recorded ZERO sunshine!
A poor month, but you haven't read the report I'm about to add.
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.
Wow, I didnt realise how cold it could get in that part of Australia during summer. I know some folks who live in Bowral which is apparently not much more than an hour from Syndey and looked at the weather records there.
The last time London Heathrow Recorded a June cooler than that was 1991!
Crikey, I never knew Bowral was so cool and temperate, even in a normal month I'd heard of it because of the Donald Bradman connection, but always imagined him growing up somewhere hot and dusty.
Crikey, I never knew Bowral was so cool and temperate, even in a normal month I'd heard of it because of the Donald Bradman connection, but always imagined him growing up somewhere hot and dusty.
Check its altitude! Bradman said the place was a haven for sweltering Sydneysiders (he didn't have this December in mind).
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.
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). 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!
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.
Wow, I didnt realise how cold it could get in that part of Australia during summer. I know some folks who live in Bowral which is apparently not much more than an hour from Syndey and looked at the weather records there.
The last time London Heathrow Recorded a June cooler than that was 1991!
It was more how an October month should be based on its statistics. The cool winds took the edge off any warmth as well and for much of the month, evenings have been cool and second layers have been worn!
I've only been here just over 3 years but I generally find come mid November you can safely ditch jackets (even light jackets) until sometime in April but I found myself wearing a light jacket most evenings and even during the day. This could of course be due to gradual acclimatisation, but many locals were commenting on the abnormal cold.
I was surprised we broke the 200 hour sunshine month in the end - the total was boosted towards the end of the month.
I've commented on this before, but many outsiders do not realise how relatively mild Sydney's summers can be (the outside perception seems to be it is hot and dry).
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