Despite warm conditions last week, New Zealand is experiencing its wettest winter since 2009 and Dunedin’s weather was much wetter than usual last month.
MetService meteorologist Tom Bell said that last month, a total of 121mm of rain fell at Dunedin Airport, nearly three times the city’s 43mm July average.
The extra rain had been particularly noticeable on July 21, when extensive flooding began on parts of the Taieri Plain. On that day 64mm fell, which itself was nearly 50% more than the city’s monthly average. By contrast, the city’s 51mm June rainfall was similar to its 48mm average.
The city’s 5.2degC June mean temperature was down a little on the month’s 5.6degC average, and July’s 4degC mean temperature was also below the usual 4.8degC June average.
MetService meteorologist Georgina Griffiths said the weather had been generally cold in the country’s main centres, but they had also experienced more rain than last year. Christchurch had 134% of its usual rainfall, at 551mm compared with 411mm, for the year until late last week.
She said most towns were "running quite cool" except for last week’s "four- or five-day warm blip".
In temperatures for the first 220 days of the year, Christchurch was running a full degree and a-half cooler than this time last year. Wellington and Auckland were each running 1 degree colder than last year.
Last year was one of the warmest winters in New Zealand. June 2016 was the third-warmest June on record.
This was the "coldest winter we have had in a long while" — since 2009 for many regions, and this had been "absolutely noticeable" in the warmer clothing required and in power bills, she said.
• Some showers, clearing later, were predicted for Dunedin today, with the rain falling above 500m in some Otago areas as snow, a MetService spokesman said. However, the weather would generally be worse in Canterbury. There was also some risk of snow at alpine passes, such as Lewis Pass, Lindis Pass and Porter’s Pass, he said.
- additional reporting by NZME
