Summer? It’s been feeling more like spring
It might have been a somewhat wet and windy start to summer, but the forecast is set to give way to warmer weather in Nelson.
John Mathieson of Nelson Weather Service said the southwesterly winds had been fairly regular across Nelson over the past few weeks and the weather had remained ‘‘spring-like’’.
‘‘Usually at this time of year we have high pressure crossing directly over the country or even the South Island, but for some reason this year it has decided to do the opposite and it is staying out in spring mode in the middle of Tasman.’’ So far, there had only been 4.8mm of rain recorded in January.
‘‘Whilst it has been quiet dry it has also unfortunately been fairly windy. It is just a pity but that is just the way it is at the moment and it doesn’t look like it is going to change much in the coming week.’’
Metservice meteorologist Lisa Murray said December had been slightly windier than normal and the strongest gust recorded at Nelson Airport was 74 kilometres per hour on December 10.
Murray said that was a ‘‘decent gust’’ for the city, not far off the strongest recorded December gust of 81 kmh in 1994.
The mean wind speed for December was 17kmh, slightly higher than the long term December mean of 15kmh.
It was also a wetter December than in previous years.
The rainfall for the month measured at Nelson Airport was 70.8mm, significantly more than the 48mm from December 2015, but only slightly higher than the 10-year average of 67.7mm.
Most of the rainfall for the month occurred on two days, 21.4mm fell on December 7 and 30.6mm on December 22.
‘‘It does happen for Nelson that it tends to be with rain moving up the West Coast, it spills over into Nelson.’’
According to NIWA’s climate summary for December, the day with the most rain was December 7, where 152.2mm was recorded at Takaka. Murray said around the country, it had been a cooler than normal January due to a southwesterly flow over the country.
‘‘The next three weeks are meant to go back to normal January temperatures.
‘‘Overall the month will feel like it was a cooler month because of that first week, especially because people were on holidays as well.’’
So far in January, Nelson had very little rainfall and was actually one of the drier spots in the country.
Tahuna Beach Holiday Park general manager Marcel Fekkes said the summer weather had been unseasonal but that hadn’t put the holidaymakers off.
‘‘It is still pretty manageable luckily enough, we have not had any flying tents.’’
He said it was lucky that despite the wind there hadn’t been much rain.
‘‘All in all it has still been a good holiday season. It would be nice if it warmed up a bit more, summer is yet to come.’’