THE Earthquake Blog

10:46am 12 Oct 2010 4 comments

I have to admit I was worried last night. It was completely irrational, but as the sun set after a day of bitterly cold southerlies and the frost started to form, I thought back to the dusk of the last polar outbreak on Friday September 3.

That was a cold, frosty night too. A quiet, extra-blanket-on-the-bed kind of night. Until 4.35am on the Saturday, and we all know what happened then. While the air was slumbering, the ground shook itself and rose up in rage.

What happened in the night seemed surreal as dawn broke on a beautiful cloudless Christchurch spring morning, and lawns and roofs glittered with frost. Those who lost power after the quake certainly remember how cold it was.  

In the last few weeks I've flatteringly had a few requests for an earthquake blog. So here it is, a one-off effort by popular demand.

While the weather and earthquakes can be bracketed together under the broad heading of "earth science", obvious similarities seem to end there, especially when it comes to forecasting. I make that comment as an informed and interested observer of such events, but not as an earthquake expert. 

The Big Blow

09:44am 03 Aug 2010 1 comment

How many of you remember "The Big Blow"?

I was thinking about the huge winds of Friday, August 1 on Sunday just gone, when the MetService had issued warnings of severe gale north-westerly winds across parts of Canterbury.

Those winds appear never to have got going, or if they did please let me know. It was kind of disappointing, as I was hoping to be able to write a story for Monday's paper pointing out their arrival on the 35th anniversary of what became known for many years after as "The Big Blow".

So, I'll blog about it instead.

Even though I lived in Wellington for three years, the nor'wester in Christchurch on the morning of August 1 is the strongest wind I have ever experienced. It was memorable for many reasons, not just that Wairakei Primary School, and presumably many others, were shut for the day.

Your worst winter weather stories

08:27pm 06 Jun 2010 3 comments

BY PAUL GORMAN

I'm ashamed to admit it after my last posting, in which I positively welcomed bad weather, but I'm almost fed up with the cold, the rain and the almost permanent lid of thick cloud.

One of the amazing things about the weather is how it will so often balance itself out. Until a few weeks ago we had had less than half the normal amount of rainfall in Christchurch we usually would have had to mid-May.

Now, after a curtain-raiser wet week followed by the main event, an incredibly wet spell in which Christchurch had about a quarter of its annual rainfall in three days, we have had at least 25mm more rain so far this year than long-term averages would suggest.

Statistics are funny things. In years to come, without knowing the full story, people will look at that figure and assume the city had had an average to slightly wetter-than-normal period spread evenly over the first five months of the year.

More rain is plaguing us at the moment, with a very cold southerly expected to send a shiver up the South Island's east coast over the next few days. Chances are, going by the computer models, another wet and very cold spell is on the cards towards the weekend.

The weather whingers

10:36am 10 May 2010 2 comments

I'm fed up with people whingeing on about the terrible summer they think we've had.

At the weekend I overheard two people moaning about how bad the weather had been and in a Christchurch newspaper competing with The Press there was mention on the front page of a "dismal summer".

 I can't stand it anymore, so I'm going to have a whinge about the whingers.

Let's face it, most Cantabrians wouldn't recognise rotten weather if it leapt up and bit them on the nose. A day of drizzle is magnified to "it's been raining for weeks", a day or two without sun means it's been a miserable month, and when you get some cold days in winter, people seem surprised and complain. I mean, sorry, but isn't winter meant to be cold?

Where i come from - and yes I guess I'm leading you down the path to calling me a whingeing pom -  winter IS cold, in fact it's cold for at least five or six months of the year. And summer can be warm, but it's just generally marked by being less cold than winter and with longer days.

An incredible April

11:07am 26 Apr 2010 0 comments

Wasn't that rain brilliant on Saturday? It's a shame it had to fall at the weekend, but it was desperately needed and came as a sight for sore eyes. I can't remember the last time we had significant, steady rain falling from thick, grey frontal clouds.

The first four months of the year have been very dry and before Saturday's rain, Christchurch had had only about half the average amount of rainfall expected over that period. With around 12mm falling on Saturday, and spells of light rain probable over the next day or two, the city's rainfall total for this month could well be approaching average levels.  

It's also been incredibly warm this April. No especially cold snaps are likely before the end of the week and my feeling is this is going to end up one of the warmest Aprils on record. Daily maximum temperatures are usually aound 17 degrees Celsius in the city but many days have been three or four degrees warmer than that, and we have also had days with mid-summer temperatures of 26 or 27C. Nobody can argue now that we haven't had a summer, just because a few weeks in January were cloudy and a little cooler than normal.

Torrents of rain are falling in Fiordland and South Westland this morning, with warnings of up to 400mm of rain in the ranges between Franz Josef and Otira from now until midnight tomorrow. This is a staggering amount of rain for those on this side of the ranges to comprehend. In several days, some of those places will receive not far off the entire year's rainfall for an average Canterbury town.

There are signs of a change to more typical autumn weather with the arrival of May. This week should be generally mild, if a bit cloudy at times with some scattered rain. But temperatures are predicted to begin falling on Friday afternoon and there could be another wet Saturday on the way, accompanied by chilly southerlies, though at this stage they are not expected to be cold enough to bring snow to other than the highest mountain peaks.