Dull, mild and near record wet winter

The August weather in Taupō followed the previous two months of winter being mainly cloudy, dull and mild, but with less rain and some frost.

Total rainfall for the month of 109.0mm over 17 wet days was, in fact, 23mm below the August average, but when added to the June and July falls gave a Taupō winter rainfall total of 555mm, now the second wettest winter recorded for Taupō .

This was a mere 59mm short of the wettest ever winter in 2008 with when 614mm fell over 56 wet days. The 2022 winter rainfall fell on 57 wet days, a new record number of wet winter days for a Taupō winter.

During August this year Taupō recorded 10 frosts, most of them generally light with the exception of a severe frost reading -7.9C on the morning of Saturday August 13, the heaviest frost of the winter. Frosts of -5.5C and -6.0C were registered on Friday, August 12 and Sunday, August 14 respectively. Despite this the 2022 winter has been warmer than usual with just 25 frosts for the three months and of those, three were regarded as heavy frosts, that is, -5.0C to -7.9C, nine moderate frosts of -3.0C to -4.0C and 13 light frosts less than -3.0C.

During the winter the daytime maximum temperature averaged 12.8C, the night time minimum 4.1C and the daily winter temperature averaged 8.5C.

There was little wind as only three days in the three months of winter exceeded 50km/h with the windiest day recording a maximum wind gust at the Taupō Airport of 70km/h on Thursday, July 21.

In summary, a dull, mild and near record wet winter and improving weather during August.