From the weather is not climate department, it seems that the USA is not the only country experiencing an October cold snap.
LATEST: It will come as little surprise to most New Zealanders that the country shivered through the coldest October in 64 years.
In its climate summary for the month, the Niwa said the average temperature nationwide was 10.6degC _ 1.4degC below average.
Such a cold October has occurred only four times in the past 100 years, the last time in 1945.
It was only fractionally warmer than August, which recorded a warmer-than-normal average temperature of 10.4degC.
Niwa said October was shaped by a series of southerly fronts, all-time record low temperatures in many areas, and unseasonable late snowfalls.
The heaviest October snowfall since 1967 occurred in Hawke’s Bay and the central North Island on Octobe 4 and 5 stranding hundreds of travellers, closing roads, and resulting in heavy lambing losses.
Not only was it cold, but it was also wet.
Rainfall was near-record (more than 200 percent of normal) in parts of Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne and the Tararua district, and well above normal in the remaining east of the North Island, as well as Wellington, Marlborough and parts of Canterbury.
It was, however, dry and sunnier than usual on the West Coast of the South Island.
For those pinning their hopes on a quick thaw, Niwa is predicting temperatures over the next three months to be near average for the North Island and top of the South Island, but below average elsewhere.
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Weather is climate only when Global Warming can be tied into it.
When I lived in SoCal, when it rained in summer, it was called “liquid sunshine”. I guess that those folks in the upper midwest states can call that stuff coming down beginning about the 1st of October “flakes of global warming”.
Yep, we used up our “winter’s worth of firewood” in July after a frigid May-June, so I got another 2 cords which were, however, delivered wet. July proved to be balmy, August was cold & wet as was September. Some of that firewood never got dry enough to use. Now we have a strong summer sun in November and it’s warming up. Our summer sun is stronger than yours because Earth is closest to the Sun in Dec-Jan, but then we periodically get cold blasts from Antarctica.. Anyway, no evidence of global warming down here in NZ.
Sorry guys you are all wrong. This is just pure anecdotal weather :)) no climate there I’m afraid.
People are repeatedly told by government that we are experiencing warming, but their senses are telling them it ain’t so. One suspects that the people will eventually wise up to the ruse
Who moved my Global Warming 🙂
But seriously what is the ‘ for in Kiwi’s?
I listened to the weather report early this morning. More unseasonal snow was being forecast. The DJ expressed amazement he was still predicting snow.
Meanwhile, the NZ Environment Court has declined permission for what would have been the southern hemisphere’s largest wind farm. Project Hayes would have delivered 260 MW of power (apparently) from 176 turbines spread over 92 square kilometres of upland grasslands. Opposition came from a grouping of artists, poets, a former All Black captain and other well to do residents of an admittedly very beautiful High Country environment. The reason given was that an ‘iconic’ landscape would have been irreversibly affected.
The South Island is already wholly powered by renewable sources, mainly hydro, so most of the power generated would have gone directly or indirectly to the more populous North Island where the country’s main demand is located. Wind farms would make more sense here than in some places, because they could be run in tandem with the hydro resource.
Meanwhile, there is active oil exploration going on in a number of offshore locations, with the possibility of some very big, but difficult to access, reserves. We are also sitting on enough lignite in the South to provide a thousand years of motor fuel, quite apart from huge coal reserves up and down the country.
Just as well, because winter started at least a month early in May, which saw record low temperatures and very early snow. June and July were bitterly cold, but August was very pleasant. Then the second half of September and most of October were a return to winter. As Willy has said, things are warming up a bit now, but we still expect a pretty cool run through at least until February.
Cold & snow ?
Did Al Gore visit NZ ?
Where’s El Nino in all this? To my untrained eye, Nino’s not strengthening enough to warm things up much…
I just spent 2 weeks there in October and believe me it’s true. Even the Kiwis in the south were complaining about how cold it was.
I’m confused. Isn’t it close to “summer” down there? At least late spring. Closer to the sun, with your end of the planet tipped toward it, surrounded by all that moderating water and you get snow? Just how tall are your mountains? We certainly have snow on our mountain.
I have a brother in Dunedin on east coast of the South Island. He believes oh yeah being a born again AGW freak. Hope he froze his behind of. BTW I am in Australia our October was quite unseasonal as was September.
You’ve got to pity NZ Willy, shivering in “… the warmest August since records began 155 years ago, with a national average temperature of 10.2°C (1.7°C above the long-term August average” – https://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/publications/all/cs/monthly/climsum-09-08
Stephen Richards
and others, have it all wrong. A series of weather events, such as those experienced by us New Zealanders (Kiwis) over the month of October 2009 constitutes a climate trend. When all of the individual months are added together from this year then the trend in this neck of the woods is towards cold. A record breaking cold May for N.Z. is part of that trend.
As I have stated elsehwere in these blogs, N.Z. has experienced a double peak in the cold period that started in April and is slowly abating in the North Island now. The South Island is still copping their normal share of mid spring snow to moderate altitudes. The first high in in the cold figures was from May-July, then again from September to now.
The SST anomalies for August showed a slight warming of the cold pool of water off the south east coast of N.Z. Since then however that pool has cooled again, and so has our weather/climate.
From my own, incomplete records (some of my diaries are missing unfortunately) that I have made since 1980, the year 2009 is the record breaker for the number of frosts (actual ice on the ground) with 34 so far here on the Manawatu plains (altitude 15m a.s.l.). Just two years ago Dr Jim Renwick of NIWA stated that if global warming were to go as the worst predictions made out, then frosts on the central volcanic plateau of the North Island (average altitude of 700m) would drop from their current average of 55 per year to zero! Guess what Jim if I am getting 34 down here by the sea I’d hate to say what they are getting in the central plateau!
2009 is also the record breaker for the number of snowfalls in the main two mountain ranges in my area, the Tararua and Ruahine Ranges (ave height 1,500m/5,000 ft), and on a weighting system this year has also seen the largest aggregate of snow dumped on those same mountains for the past 30 years.
Stephen my friend, these individual weather events tally up to climate. The climate summary for this year around here so far is cold! Until that giant pool of cold water to our S.E. warms up, that is the way it is going to stay.
Coops.
Moderate to strong El Nino conditions tend to result in a stronger southwesterly wind pattern over the NZ South Island in particular. This brings more cold air up from the Southern Ocean. So generally more winter/spring snow and on the West Coast more rain as well. Given that the last 20 years or so have seen a succession of El Nino events it is not surprising therefore that most of the glaciers on the West side of the South Island have been increasing in ice-mass and advancing. Glaciers on the east side of the Southern Alps main divide tend to have a slower response time and many of these are still either unchanged or retreating.
Long-term NZ temperature records from 1880 onward do not seem to record much warming. Its difficult to get a good grip on this because the long-term mean temp is made from a nationwide group of thermometers that are biased by changes in the mean latitude of the group as a whole (have a look at EM Smiths website “musings of the chiefio” for analysis of this issue.
As we know its not climate unless the alarmists say it is.
Cold October? Its done nothing for the born again warmers.
They are saving the world after all. How can you take that away from their otherwise drab and uneventful lives?
We will just have to give them some other perhaps equally ridiculous but less harmful cause
PS – Iceberg on its way to our shores:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10607954
Yes, as has been pointed out, I mixed July and August. July was cold, August warm.
Rob (12:32:25) :You’ve got to pity NZ Willy, shivering in “… the warmest August since records began 155 years ago, with a national average temperature of 10.2°C (1.7°C above the long-term August average” –
Rob when its warm here we are grateful. We call it good weather. Do you call 10.2C blistering hot?
If you are feeling bloody hot where you are (and where are you by the way?) why not move to the South Pole or summit Greenland.
PS The average was 10.2 in August and 10.6 in Sept, when we had snow all over the place. Get a grip of reality by looking at the absolute temperatures.
October sorry
@Fred from Canuckistan
Maybe Gore can visit the last week in December and we’ll get a while Christmas.
Had the last overnight freeze IIRC on October 27th. No ice in the livestock water troughs. Northern Canterbury, 31 km north of Christchurch. It did get up to 21 C yesterday, no fire in the log burner last night. http://weather.yahoo.com/Sefton-New-Zealand/NZXX0040/forecast.html?unit=c
[stop these stupid quips of yours – I’m sick of them – abortion has no place in this discussion! – Anthony]
NZ Willy (10:57:49) :
“Yep, we used up our “winter’s worth of firewood” in July after a frigid May-June, so I got another 2 cords which were, however, delivered wet. July proved to be balmy, August was cold & wet as was September. Some of that firewood never got dry enough to use. Now we have a strong summer sun in November and it’s warming up. Our summer sun is stronger than yours because Earth is closest to the Sun in Dec-Jan, but then we periodically get cold blasts from Antarctica.. Anyway, no evidence of global warming down here in NZ.”
Unfortunately your Government thinks differently.