January's Weather: Summer III

Murray from Paraparaumu

Along with most places in Central New Zealand, January 2026 in Kāpiti was its third summer month ⎯ the first half of which was sunny and dry, while the second, particularly the third week, had more cloud and produced most of the month’s rain. However, along with the lower west coast of the Motu, it again avoided the extreme rain storms of north-eastern regions

Temperatures: Our daily average maximum temperature was 21.9℃, over a degree cooler than average, being the lowest in over 10 years, but only three points below the also cooler January 2025. However, we were again the warmest place in central NZ with an overall mean temperature of 17.4℃, despite some eastern areas with maximums frequently a couple degrees higher than ours.

Maximums of over 20 degrees in Kāpiti occurred on 27 days.

Sunshine: The equivalent of 18 fine days was average for January, with the sunny first half of the month and last week, supporting the third cloudy/wet one.

Rainfall: Rainfall of around 95mm, was almost double the historic average for January and the highest for nine years, however, almost 70 percent of this fell in just over 12 hours as one event at the beginning of the third week. Despite this the rain was not sufficient to prevent dry conditions prevailing for most of the month.

February’s Outlook: Records show Kāpiti’s weather for February is virtually the same as January’s with an average temperature of 23℃ and 18 sunny days, so February this year might have a bit of catching-up.

Photo: Cloud over the eastern hills was common in week three.