New Zealand: Coldest May Ever

May the coldest on record, Niwa figures show

Matt Stewart
Times Age
10th July 2009

Wairarapa certainly played its part in the record-breaking chill that gripped the country during May, with Martinborough plunged into gloom courtesy of a paltry 92 hours of sunshine.

Niwa senior climate scientist Georgina Griffiths said May "broke records from one end of the country to the other - it was the coldest May on record", and there was nothing much to toast in the South Wairarapa wine village, which registered 69 percent of normal sunshine hours for May - the lowest figure for the town since records began.

"In May, Martinborough was gray, gloomy and depressing," she said.

"In June, the east coast strips of both islands were gloomy while sun shone around the rest of the country, like Hamilton which had record sunshine hours," Ms Griffiths said.

Below normal June sunshine (75 - 90 percent of normal) blighted coastal Otago, coastal Canterbury and the East Cape, she said.

It was wet too with double the normal rainfall for May (about 200 percent of normal) in Wairarapa, Canterbury and Otago while much of Northland, Auckland, Wellington and Southland got at least 150 percent of normal May rainfall.

June didn't fare much better as Ngawi racked up a record low topping the mercury at just 6.6C on June 16 - the lowest daily maximum temperature on the books.

June 16 also marked the beginning of a 10-day anticyclone - a high that hung round the country with scant wind and clear skies; "all ingredients in a recipe for frost", Ms Griffiths said.

Wairarapa, alongside most of the lower North Island, experienced the second-coldest June in recorded history, with monitoring equipment in Ngawi and Martinborough clocking average maximum daytime temperatures of 11.6C and 11.9C respectively.

Ms Griffiths said these temperatures were 1.5C lower than what is typical for June - a pattern that was repeated across the lower North Island.

However, Ms Griffiths said the future was looking brighter across Wairarapa, Gisborne and Hawke's Bay with Niwa predicting a return to normal temperatures and from July to September.












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