Gisborne has set a new weather record on reaching the end of the eighth month in what has been a bizarre and devastating year for weather.
With no rain over the past few days, it means it has been the driest August on record for Gisborne, going back 135 years.
The month ended with a total of just 16.5 millimetres in the rain gauge.
The 30-year average for August is 86.5mm, meaning the month has missed out on just over 80 percent of its normal rainfall.
This is the driest August recorded at any of the Gisborne rain gauge sites since 1878, including the harbour, private gauges and the official MetService gauge at the airport.
There have been just three days over the past 31 with rain of any note, and those accounted for just under 13mm of the total.
The last decent rainfall was 41 days ago, on July 21, when the day recorded 35.7mm over 24 hours.
The weather data for the year look as if someone has suddenly swung the steering wheel in a totally different direction.
After the first wet half of the year, 2023 had already become Gisborne’s wettest year on record — again going back as far as
1878.
With an El Nino cycle taking hold, rainfall, temperatures, wind and sunshine are all changing.
Preliminary figures show August was not only down on rain, but the area did not get as much sun.
The 30-year average is 173 hours of sunshine for Gisborne, but by yesterday the total was around 25 hours short of that.
As a result of clear skies, heat loss increased, and the month was not only dry, but colder than
usual.
The mean monthly temperature was just over 10 degrees — about half a degree cooler than normal.
The daytime highs averaged just over 14.5 degrees — two-thirds of a degree colder than the 30-year average of 15.3.
Night temperatures were not down as much — about 0.4 of a degree down on the 30-year average of 5.7.
The deepest frost of the year to date was minus four degrees on the morning of the 30th.
