Weather reaches new highs

By Josh Heslop

The weather this week has been brought to you by the letter H. A big one at that. In fact the high that’s covering us at the moment is about the size of our nearest neighbour – Australia.

It’s been great putting together the forecasts this week. The isobar map has been proudly displaying the ‘Big H’ as it pushes across the Tasman. That’s benefit of a large high swamping a small country; no one is left out in the rain and the golden weather lasts for days. You can literally sum up the forecast by saying: “Sun for everyone!”

This week has been a nice breather, especially after the record amount of rainfall that fell earlier this month. If you think back before that, we were concerned about ongoing drought in Northland and inland parts of Otago. Now that we’ve been from one extreme to another, it’s time to celebrate the good conditions. Bring on the ski season too. Coronet Peak and Mount Hutt are already open. Turoa opens today and The Remarkables is scheduled to start operating this weekend.

The clear skies make for extra cold temperatures at night and a higher chance of Jack Frost stopping by in the morning. I like to think of cloud as acting like a blanket to keep the warmth of the day in. Without nature’s insulation over much of the country at the moment, I’m certainly piling on the jumpers and filling up the hot water bottles. That’s my old man tendencies coming out! This week Auckland got down to 3 degrees, but the coldest place by far was Alexandra on -4.

In just a matter of days we’ll be hitting the shortest day of the year. Winter Solstice is on Monday. From there it’s the slow crawl back up to summer. I like this time of the year though. I can drink mulled wine and eat apple crumble for days.

Settle down old man!