When it’s announced, there’s a suggestion and often a smile which implies that, once again, Hastings (or wherever) is the victor because it had the highest maximum, way up in the 30s.
Someone always has to ruin it, though, and Balclutha, for example, only managed to reach 15°C, accompanied by a grimmer tone expressive of some disappointment.
In one simple example, this is a problem we seem to have with our view of the weather. Most Kiwis generally like it hot rather than cold. For hot equals good, cold equals bad. The more scorching and sweating you are, the better.
It’s an interesting psychological situation. Being warm does make you feel better in some ways, until it becomes too warm. And we know that the strength of the sun in New Zealand is enough to burn skin within 10 minutes at this time of year, that, as a consequence, we have the highest skin-cancer rate in the world and should be blocking out as much sun as possible.
So why want to "win" this daily lottery? It doesn’t prove our place is better than theirs. Is it because it gives some affirmation of how uncomfortable it was and just what we went through on that particular day?
As New Zealand continues to get warmer due to global climate change, scientists tell us unequivocally hot really does not equal good. Hot actually equals bad. It’s cold, or at least cooler than normal, that now equals good.
Few could argue it hasn’t been an unusually hot end to spring and start to summer. Already, many eastern and inland parts of the country are very dry. If there is no appreciable rain in the next few weeks those regions will be getting significantly parched.
In some South Island and North Island east coast places, persistent north to northwest airstreams since mid-November have pushed temperatures way higher than some spots might see more than once or twice in an average summer. Average daily maximum temperatures in the past month, typically around the 20°-21°C mark, have been about 3°C higher, a quite exceptional amount.
Yesterday, firefighters were struggling to control the alpine vegetation blaze covering more than 300ha of the volcanic plateau, amid fears a wind change might cause it to spread rapidly across unburnt ground. Just last month, almost 3000ha of the park was burnt.
Across the Tasman, where you can always add on at least 10°C to the maximums we experience here, the bushfire season has begun in earnest, with a firefighter killed and villages on the New South Wales’ central coast and along Tasmania’s east coast incinerated.
While Tongariro burns, the government is fiddling. Fiddling about with New Zealand’s climate-change obligations and rejecting all of the Climate Change Commission’s recommendations on toughening our emissions targets.
In spite of the commission warning climate change is affecting us more quickly and more severely than initially expected, the government does not want to strengthen the 2050 targets for carbon-dioxide and methane emissions.
So, we should not be at all surprised about the extra heat beating down which will build further over the next decade or two. Neither should we be at all surprised about the increasing risk and number of devastating bush, forest and scrub fires.
And neither should we be surprised at more major storms, like the October 23 event across the South, which cause great destruction to many, including those in the farming sector which traditionally the National Party protects.
The government’s obduracy is doing its bit to make all these things far more likely, damaging to people and ruinuous to their livelihoods and the country’s economy.
Our thinking needs a reset. Hot is not what we, or the rest of the world, should celebrate. It’s not what we want at all.
