2poor4this

Your Area?

Rather than a where's the best place to live thread I thought i'd try the weather angle. I've looked at the websites but there's nothing like asking the people who live there.

My other half lived in Kerikeri for a while before comming back to the UK, now were looking to move out with her 3 year old son but the way she talks she's convinced the rest of New zealand especially the South Island is freezing cold and covered in sheet Ice.

Can someone put her mind at rest and give us an idea of what a years worth of weather is like in you area, Sun, Rain, wind, snow and temperatures etc...
Hopefully then I can get here to admit there are other warm places in New Zealand. We can then look at the locations themselves in more detail.

Any weather people out there

lapsed kiwi

Auckland - similar to KeriKeri but probably 2-3C cooler in winter. Average summer day in the mid to high twenties, very rarely above 30C. Average winter daily maximum 14-16C, a cold day would be 12C. Average winter night minimum 7-10C, cold night 2-3C. In 2.5 years, I have never had to scrape frost off the car and I leave home for work daily at 0715. Non-JAFAs say it rains all the time, which is rubbish, but it does rain quite a lot in the spring (Sep-Nov), and we don't get droughts like Canterbury and some other areas. Altogether very pleasant - the weather very rarely stops you doing what you want in Auckland, winter or summer.

lardyl

only add that the rain tends to come down in shorter sharper showers than in the UK - so if it does do the downpour thing then it can cause cancellations on the sport front and make getting about a bit of a problem without a brolly.

Also there is *far* more daylight in the winter up here in Auckland (we're just round the corner from Orewa) than in the UK although the summer days are shorter than say in Scotland - bit like being in the Med.
All in all better weather for us!

Yotty

South Island is Glacial I shouldn't bother going there ..

hjmilligan

Sorry i don't agree We have had so far...Frosty mornings, by lunchtime sunny and only need a cardigan on. Not much rain at all and yes we have had a bad drought. We live north canterbury so can't comment further down south. We have found it warmer than the UK.

Yotty

I remember the post office at Rangiora nice place to live

NZGrl

Last year driving from Orewa to Warkworth we had -3 degrees!!!! Brrrrrrrr

The weather has been really nice this year so far...Nice long summer...Lovely! Today in Warkworth is nice bright and sunny. For the past 5 years Ive found the summers quite short and wet in Auckland and Long cold wet winters. This year has been a exception...Id love every year to be like this one so far...Bring it on!

lapsed kiwi

You should tell the BBC - according to their website the record minimum for Auckland is +1
Actually I remember the day you're talking about, there were some unusual patches of frost north of here

BEVS

Nelson and Bays.

I feel our weather to be sorta similar to the Med. We have hot summers where most days are blue sky days. Winter days are still for the most part sunny but there will be night and early morning ground frosts , clearing up by mid-morning. No snow falls here, but one can see it on the surrounding ranges. This brings a chill to the air.
It is possible to be in tshirts and shorts for most all of the year. There are times when it seems we have rains. This happens over Christmas . Spring & January can be quite unsettled. Autumn is glorious .

Hokey-pokey

Have just come inside from doing some gardening - very warm out there. Cloudless blue skies here in the B.O.P , a slight breeze. Pleasantly surprised to discover jonquils in flower. All up, a beautiful sunny winters day.

lardyl

yeah local conditions are often that - we had to scrape a thin film of frosty stuff off the cars last winter, once I think, maybe its the altitude or sun direction?? Plus of course the car doesn't live in a Stevenson's Screen or whatever they use nowadays!
There are bound to be spots around the sticks that get and remain colder in the day and the road north of the new tunnels does pass through some valleys in the bush.......

For "better" weather info than the bbc, try weather underground, or www.wunderground.com as it is now known! Good almanac with weather station data and the "lighting up times"

Looking at it now it'll have the Kiwis on here annoyed as NZ is just a black blob off the motherland of Ozzie!! hehehe.........seriously though just enter the city name or airport code and there you are - use the almanac feature too as its nifty!

kiwinow

Seriously cold in Timaru today. I think it's snowing in Dunedin. We have warmish summers interspersed with coolder days. It gets down to about 8 max and -3 min in winter, but sunny.
In the south I'd say Nelson was pretty warm. Alexandra gets really hot in summer but very cold in winter. Napier, Gisborne, Tauranga, Whakatane all farily warm.

southerner

No snow here yet today, although probably will get some tonight.

Dunedin gets pilloried by the rest of the main centres for its weather - but compares favourably with anywhere in the Uk on an average temperatures, sunshine or rainfall basis. We seem to have fairly fine winters, lots of crystal clear days with the odd southerly storm thrown in. Might get 1-2 decent snowfalls a year. Hardly ever have frosts, partly because of the coastal location.

Autumn and Spring can be a bit blowy with equinox winds (I think that probably affects quite a bit of NZ). Summer is probably a bit more variable than what you would get in most of the Uk, although thinking back a few years I don't remember Uk summers being particularly consistent either.

Average temps are probably 5 degrees lower than Auckland throughout the year, with lots less rainfall and humidity.

Kiwiprincess

Wellington is the epitome of the bipolar/manic weather system. On good days it is absolutely brillliant. Fun to have around and simply beautiful. Sparkling. Puts on one h*ll of a show for people coming into the City from the Paraparaumu line train or zooming down the Ngauranga Gorge and being greeted by the Harbour. For those coming in from the Hutt there is the gentle reminder all the way along of such beauty. On the bad days, the darkness spreads and you mutter about your previous love where the warmth was around you and you never had to deal with the cold shoulder of loneliness and bitter bitter weather. But just when you consider going somewhere with a warmer heart you realise there is a sparkle there and you remember you need a bl**dy big wallop upside your head for considering being around anywhere else.

Ash1

Yep. The weather in Tauranga has been fantastic the last few days. Clear blue skies and warm enough today to take my tee shirt off.
To answer the post and being obsessed with the sun myself I would say that Northland, Hawkes Bay and Bay of Plenty are the sunniest/mildest areas in the North Island. Where we are in Papamoa/ Tauranga, we are protected from alot of the bad weather by the Kaimai mountains. The weather was quite a big part of where we lived in NZ and so far Tauranga has not dissappointed but then this will only be our second winter.
Ash