> From the WeatherWatch archives
Earlier today we presented a brief quiz on weather in New Zealand and the responses to our quiz just shows how many kiwis love and know their weather facts and figures!
Thanks for your answers and here are the questions and answers below…
1/ What year was New Zealand’s highest temperature of 42.4 degrees recorded?
1973 in Rangiora and Jordan in Marlborough.
2/ Which city is windier overall, Invercargill, Wellington or Palmerston North?
Wellington
3/ Which city receives more rain each year than the other? Auckland or Dunedin.
Auckland
4/ What year did Cyclone Bola hit NZ?
1988
5/ Which area of New Zealand is the driest annually?
Central Otago
6/ What year in the 1980s did Invercargill get serious flooding?
1984
7/ NZ’s peak wind gust is 250kph. Where was it recorded?
Mt John Observatory
8/ Timaru had 2 record breaking temperatures last Sunday recorded at the airport and in the gardens. What were they?
40.3 at the airport and 41.3 at the gardens
9/ Which city in the country receives the most snow each year on average?
Dunedin
10/ Finally, which town has the North Island’s highest recorded temperature?
Ruatoria in 1973
Comments
Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 13 Feb 2011.
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Sam on 13/02/2011 12:15pm
Just out of interest, you say this:
“10/ Finally, which town has the North Island’s highest recorded temperature?
Ruatoria in 1973”
Any idea what the actual temperature was? Have to say I’m surprised the highest temperature in the North Island on record isn’t somewhere around inland Hastings or Gisbourne where NWerlies (assuming that’s what brought the heat in 1973) have a longer track over land and hills…
Reply
WW Forecast Team on 13/02/2011 3:51pm
Hi Sam
It’s an interesting point and we tend to agree.
We’ve just discovered that Ruatoria had 38.9 degrees in Jan 1979 exceeding the 38.3 on Feb 1973.
Thanks for your question
Cheers
WW
Reply
RW on 13/02/2011 6:14pm
Being “inland” doesn’t necessarily enhance matters in those NW flows. Gisborne was the first NI place to approximate 100F (99.8F in Jan 1956), and recorded 38.1C in Jan 1979.
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Sam on 14/02/2011 11:10pm
Sorry, by inland I mean away from the immediate coast (say a few km’s) so as to avoid cooling sea breezes that eventuate in the afternoon, I understand that the far east coast is often the hottest part of both islands under the foehn effect of a NWerly.
Also, interesting that you claim “Gisborne was the first NI place to approximate 100F (99.8F in Jan 1956), and recorded 38.1C in Jan 1979.” After reading this in one of WW’s/NZ heralds most recent articles about the record heat “On February 2, Gisborne had its warmest day in 105 years of record-keeping when the mercury climbed to 36.3C.” Any thoughts on this? (hopefully a mod sees this even though its a few pages back…)
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Sam on 19/02/2011 8:05pm
I’ve bookmarked this page and was hoping any of the mods/admins could provide clarification re the Gisbourne temperature as I know they have to see this post before its allowed onto the site?
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Guest on 13/02/2011 8:23am
Here’s a question for you. Apart from last weekend, when was the previous time we got a ‘real’ temperature of 40 or more? Don’t know the answer, just curious.
Reply
WW Forecast Team on 13/02/2011 8:34am
Thanks for your question!
We are scratching our heads a bit and we have Darfield at 38.4 on New Years Day in 2004 which came close and also Ruatoria had 38.9 in 1979 however 1973 was the day a number of stations exceeded 40 degrees including Christchurch at 41.6.
Cheers
WW
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