CHRISTCHURCH WEATHER

With all this talk about climate change and seeing the effects globally with superstorms like the ones that are pounding Scotland at the moment, is making us take note of what is happening in our neck of the woods. No matter where you live in the world I am sure you will see changes in weather over a historic period of time. Now that I have got that of my chest I would like to talk to you about the weather in Christchurch Canterbury NZ.

CHRISTCHURCH WEATHER

I use to live in Auckland in the north island of New Zealand before coming to Christchurch in the early part of 2012. I was told that it is a tad colder as in Auckland Summer would see days of around 24 to 26 degrees celsius and winter on a bitterly cold day would get down to maybe 6 degrees celsius at its lowest. Christchurch was a major shock to my system as for the first time in my life I had to wear multiple layers in winter with thermals.

WINTER 2012

A GUY FROM BRAZIL SURFING IN THE SNOW
NEW BRIGHTON BEACH CHRISTCHURCH

In the month of April the temp was bloody cold getting down to a few nights in the low negatives but the thing that struck me the most was how the easterly winds were very cold as were the southerlies. Back to Northern NZ for example the easterly winds would be hot like a fan heater and the westerly and southerly winds were colder. So that was bizarre to me noting that the North Westerly wind here in Canterbury is very warm to hot in summer and warmish in winter. 

The Temps in winter of 2012 got down very low recalling days of maybe 1 or 2 celsius and night temps dropped to negative 9 celsius at times but was always in the negatives at night. This was the first for me as we got a bloody snow storm and when you are working on a building 20 stories high with no windows she was bitterly cold. I was on contract taking down the Clarendon towers after the earthquakes that devastated Christchurch. If it was not bad enough still having magnitude 5 plus quakes now we had to deal with snow. It was so cold and the snow fell to sea level.

SUMMER 2012 - 2013

The start of summer seemed to come on very fast as one day it was around the 16 celsius mark then we had a rather quick increase to the mid twenties. This was a great summer always very hot with a week or so of the temperature reaching 35 to 40 celsius and that was a killer. The North Westerly winds were blowing like the ultimate fan heater whereas on the coast it was much cooler with the easterly winds.

Summer lasted all the way through until early April then we had a big change as the weather dropped temperature suddenly as we progressed into another cold winter. The snow that fell in Canterbury was nice and thick on the mountains and low areas around the Southern Alps and Arthurs Pass. The City of Christchurch only got a few days of snow but the weather was extremely cold right up to late October before coming into summer again. The summer of 2013 early 2014 was quite nice still with high peaks at times but they were short lived. This season was definitely a bit cooler for summer and it ended in early to mid April.

WINTER 2013 -2014

CHRISTCHURCH CITY FLOODED

Well this has been a really strange winter as even though the temps were in single digits for the majority of this winter season it has been a lot warmer. The snow is normally visible on the ,mountain tops of the Southern Alps by June. But this year the snow coverage has been quite scarce as the whole of winter has had a drastically shortage of the white stuff we are use to. 

We have had no snow in Christchurch City this year with only a flurry on the Port Hills but we have had some severe down pours of rain putting the city underwater. Further south they had a pretty descent amount in some locations.

As we head into summer I was expecting it to be a very early summer as in October we had days with temperatures reaching 28C but that changed rather quickly going from high temps to low temps rapidly. We are now in the month of December and I am rather mythed as the temps are all over the place. First thing in the morning it may be 10 degrees then by lunchtime we are hitting 24 degrees dropping rapidly in the late afternoon.

So it will be interesting to see what happens this summer season and this will be a topic I talk about next year. After talking to many locals that say the weather is very odd are sure that next winter 2015 is going to be super cold with heavier snow falls down to sea level.

May God Bless you and keep you all safe over the holiday season no matter where in the world you may be.

SURFING IN THE SNOW CHRISTCHURCH JUNE 2012