Warm start to winter but cold snap coming
Temps described as a ‘substantial departure from the norm’
If you’re thinking the nights in Horowhenua have been warm so far this winter, you’d be right. June is a month normally associated with frozen puddles and early-morning steam breath, but new records could be set if the current mild midwinter temperatures continue.
Horowhenua looks odds-on to record its warmest June since records began in 1896, with temperatures for the first half of this month recorded as being 2.8C higher than average.
National Institute of Weather and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) meteorologist Ben Noll said the average daily temperature reading of 12.1C at the Levin weather station was “a substantial departure from the norm”.
Noll said average readings that showed an increase or decrease of than 1.2C were considered noting as worthy departures from what could be expected, so a 2.8C increase could be looked at as “substantial”.
“If we keep this pace up then it could go down as one of the warmest Junes on record. If the month ended now, it would be,” he said.
A temperature high of 20C was recorded one day last week in Levin, while the overnight temperature did not fall below 10.3C a few nights later.
Cold snaps where temperatures would drop again were expected, with the next one due any day, although it wouldn’t hang around for long, which could see the warmerthan-normal weather return again. “It’s not likely to last,” he said. The readings for Levin were taken from a weather station located on the eastern side of Punahau. Records date back 126 years.
Noll said it wasn’t only the Horowhenua region that was recording warmer than normal winter temperatures.
Warm flows of air from tropical and sub-tropical regions had brought with them humidity that had led to overnight cloud, which had caused an increase in average overnight temperatures in many regions along the west coast of the North Island.
Noll said records showed that overall, temperatures were warming.
“The winters in 2020 are quite a bit different from the winters of the 1960s, put it that way,” he said.