Hamilton coldest centre in country
Move over Queenstown, Hamilton was the coldest centre in the country yesterday morning.
The city registered 0 degrees on the MetService temperature gauge while Queenstown was a relatively balmy 8C. Even Auckland was cooler, clocking in at 5C.
Meteorologist Peter Little said the upper North Island and central North Island was quite cold overnight and that was due to clear skies and light winds.
‘‘It’s not often that places like Hamilton would necessarily be one of the coldest spots in the country even though it is known for having decent frosts during winter.
‘‘But as you head south towards the front which has moved on to southern New Zealand there is a lot of wind, particularly around Wellington and south of there, and that cloud and wind is preventing it getting quite so cold overnight.’’
A few Auckland residents could have been scraping some ice off their windscreens yesterday morning as well, with weather stations at Whenuapai station getting down to 1.2C, Ardmore 1.5C, and a bit warmer at Auckland Airport at 4.9C.
‘‘We take our temperature off the screen which is about 1.2 metres above the ground so as you tend to go closer to the ground the temperature tends to get colder because that is where the cooling takes place.
‘‘So any air temperature that is around 4C or below you can often have frost on the ground.’’
The temperature in Hamilton was forecast to warm up to around 14C during the day, which Little said was average for this time of year.
‘‘It does pick up on Wednesday and Thursday. There is going to be some warm temperatures up to 17C across the Waikato area.
‘‘Places in the east and north are looking even warmer, so places like Kaitā ia and Whā ngā rei are looking at temperatures of around 18C on Wednesday and Thursday, as is Napier.’’
Little said with fronts moving in there was going to be a lot more wind across the country, and it was generally going to mix things up, so you don’t get the cooling at the surface overnight.
‘‘Tonight [Tuesday] Hamilton will go down to six and then Wednesday night/Thursday morning also six, and then Thursday into Friday it will be about four – so not quite as cold – and slightly windy conditions and westerly winds.’’
He said it had been wet in a lot of places and that the cloud acted like a blanket, and it stopped a lot of the cooling, which had prevented a lot of frosts this winter.
‘‘Also, we haven’t had a lot of the fronts where you get the cool southerly winds come through and then the skies clear and the winds drop off, which is the perfect recipe for a frost.’’
He said it had been a wet winter, with a lot of places in July breaking records. Hamilton had its wettest July since records began back in 1935.