[New Zealand Weather]

A bit late - a new 48-hour record for rainfall in NZ was set at the Cropp Waterfall site in Westland (975m ASL) during a major rain event 25-27 March, which caused a lot of damage, including the washout of the bridge over the Waiho river at Franz Josef. Cropp recorded 1086.5mm from 09:12 on the 25th to the same time on the 27th, breaking its own record of 1061mm on 1-3 January 2013.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/112018973/vital-waiho-river-bridge-reopens-reconnecting-recovering-west-coast

Average annual rainfall at Cropp (1982-2018) was 11280mm, and there are certainly wetter spots that haven't been measured properly yet.

[New Zealand Weather]

Coromandel could cop some very heavy rain around 2-3 January, depending on the trajectory of an ex-tropical low.

http://about.metservice.com/homepagerss/

 

 

[New Zealand Weather]

On ‎21‎/‎12‎/‎2015 at 0:01 AM, Styx said:

It looks like you got that December record in Christchurch and by quite a comfortable margin.

This thread (towards the end) gives some details. Impressive, but not as anomalous as the event on 7 February 1973 when 3 locations reached 42C (or rather, 42.4C, 42.3C and 41.6C, the latter at Christchurch Gardens).

http://www.weatherforum.org.nz/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5480&p=158504#p158504

[New Zealand Weather]

"""Complaints about the cold weather this month are justified, as some parts of the country have reported their lowest temperatures.

More than 30 weather stations around New Zealand have also had daily maximum temperature recordings that are either the lowest ever recorded, or at least in the top four coldest for July"".

 

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/70200528/its-a-recordbreaking-winter-so-far

 

This will be the first July in NZ with a temperature deficit since 2009. Not a reflection of the YTD status however.

[North American Weather (U.S.A & Canada)]

In the western half of the USA, it is looking like the usual suspects are going to be cooking these weekend. Huge highs well above the 100F benchmark.

 

Phoenix - 48C / 120F

Death Valley - 54C / 131F  Wowsa!

Las Vegas - 47C / 119F

 

Looking at all time high temperatures. (World record: 56.7C / 134F)

 

 

Actually the Death Valley  reading of 134F is not considered to be safe. Chris Burt's article on this:

 

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/comment.html?entrynum=3

 

Conclusion: the safest maximum so far is the 129F (53.9C) recorded in Death valley on 4 occasions.

 

Perhaps this weekend may top this?

 

[New Zealand weather]

Moist air being forced across the Southern Alps creates a pronounced fohn effect in the east of the South Island. With the fohn process moist air yields a higher temperature rise than dry air.

 

There was more to it as well. A parcel of very warm dry air over central Australia travelled across the Tasman, with a definite separation line from a moister cooler marine layer below. Conseqently the air that arrived at the Alps was unusually warm before the fohn process even started. Helping a little further perhaps was the protracted rather dry spell for months since in the eastern regions, with soil temperatures above normal and also a prior succession of very warm days. Christchurch for example had already had 3-4 consecutive days in the 30s before 7/2/1973.