I go by how much summer was talked about to figure out which was the beast so Im going to say last summer here in Auckland was pretty impressive.

It was in the mid 20s by November and by December was more like southeast Queensland with high humidity and days nearing 30 degrees. But what made it so great was the amount of sun that came with the heat and when we would be hit by rain events it would be 2 days at the most then back to blazing sun and heat, so the rain events were actually something to look forward to.

The worst would be summer of 2004. I remember it being showery, windy and chilly for much of December with a high of 15 degrees on the 4th with hail! In saying that though it redeemed itself hugely by mid jan with consistent highs of 25 to 28 degrees then a scorching Feb with a high touching 30 on the 4th.

So even when summer starts poor here in Auckland it does usually to a complete 360 which gives me high hopes for summer 12.

Ben 🙂

I think 2010 was probably one of the best summers in the last decade – with a strong La Nina we actually had a taste of summer before xmas – from Oct through to Dec it was very dry – then some nice rain events in the weekends through to Feb.
In fact Auckland has probably had the best summers over the last 5 years in some time.
Bringing us to this year – a weak La Nina and this is more reminiscent of how summers were on occassional years from 2000 to 2005.Cloudy , quite humid(but not as bad as earlier in the decade),wet.
I’m on tank water so this year has been great – 100% full all the time!!However , the downside is a lot of powdery mildew, fungal diseases in the garden, but the citrus trees are loving it!

Malcolm Y , Waimauku , NW Auckland

Another was 1988-89 did well from national park south,the 1989 `fine and often calm weather extended well into winter I remember.
1982-83 was very showery with westerlies(especially dec 82 was cold) after a warmer november where I lived though it did have sunshine though it settled down from march 83 into a sunny winter though it was quite cold.
1996-97 (in Auckland) the temperatures wernt especially high,think 26c was the highest it obtained that summer on few rare days.

This has to be the worst summer that we’ve had in recent years in Auckland.
I remember a few wet new years when I was a kid but we can’t seem to get a break here. The only sunny day we’ve had since boxing day was last Friday! We’ve been really fortunate in Auckland as the last summers have been Indian Summers.

Miss the summer of 1994 in Timaru. Bloody awesome and this one is slowly getting better.
Cheers
Rob