The SE arrived here and was a bitterly cold wind, like it was off the ice. It was dry and dropped virga. Had it been moist, it would not have surprised me to see it snow fall on the hills. Did that here in January 2010. I want the Northerly to pack its bags, its been arriving for months now. It is orographic here and is more of a NE-E with dry air and has been about 53% humidity lately. We had Ac lenticular from that yesterday as well as from the SE direction which I did not understand, suffice to say stable air must’ve been present. T-storms forming in stable air is normal for the Wellington region.  Some odd N’s have been coming down this side of Kapiti Isld 2013-14, setting up convergence with the SE and some cracker looking cells. That’s actually not normal at all to see the N so close to our shore. Had one last week. As for this month, it is like last year with that westerly summer. Waiting to see if any systems spawn the Taranaki NW’s this autumn, as they strike us with a literal deluge with no wind to push them uphill, and sometimes a mountain stalling and hot inversions. They were bad last year, with rain in excess of 1mm/minute. We’ll just have to see if any ex-tropical cyclones or lows come down via the Tasman Sea March-April. 

We’ve had some weird stuff, like virga falling from the Nov-Dec anticyclones, like it wants to snow. Also had virga from standing waves even, which is all wrong. The nor westers have been very powerful, literal blastings this month, and to have rain falling at 1mm/minute is unusual for January, that is normally Spring or Autumn sorta stuff. We had little bits of ice and like tiny grains of sleet with the strong and warm 2013-14 westerlies, with intense hail from a W trough. It wasn’t from cells, that I believe is due to our changing orographic climate, and we may yet see sleet fall from a warm westerly. It’ll be novel for real when that happens. Still the NW cloud bases are high up, which is a sure sign of summer here. 

Enough wind driven pine needles wrecking the roof and randomy elsewhere since summer begun.

Enough wind driven pine needles wrecking the roof and randomly elsewhere since summer began.

Hi Philip,

has anyone from NIWA or elsewhwere alluded to what over-riding atmospheric phenomena is causing/allowing the sub-antarctic lows to rise up and sweep over the country effectively blocking out the approaching highs on almost every occasion?

Is it per chance an unfavourable SAM (Southern Annular Mode) and cooling waters mostly off our S.E. coast courtesy of the ACW (Antarctic Circumpolar Wave) combining in a negative way?

We had 18 straight days in a row without rain back in November here in the Manawatu and temperatures were just climbing nicely until early December. Since then it seems like nature can’t make its mind up which way to go. A few degrees cooler and this current southerly would be dropping snow on the ranges around here! That isn’t unheard of, in fact it snowed on the Ruahines last January at the start of the drought!