DECEMBER'S WEATHER

Murray from Paraparaumu

As in recent months, December in Kāpiti was also fairly cloudy, with only eight completely sunny days, and except for Wellington, was the coolest place in central New Zealand. However, for most of the month rainfall was again below average, and we ended the year without any severe or extreme weather events in 2023.

Although the average daily maximum temperature of 21.1 degrees was only half a degree below average it couldn’t compete with the east coast who experienced some extremely high temperatures, unusual even for them so early in summer; no doubt due to El Niño and our cooling nor-westerly breezes off the sea.

But, we still enjoyed 24 days with temperatures of 20 degrees or over, the same as Blenheim, the warmest place in central New Zealand.

Rainfall of around 90 mm was average, this being the seventh consecutive month of average or below average rainfall. Sunshine totalled the equivalent of 15 sunny days compared with 22 in December 2022.

Statistics for the year show that autumn was our wettest season, with the highest rainfall in April amounting to 203 mm, while June was the driest with only 8 mm. January was the sunniest month with the equivalent of 21.5 days of sunshine, with February and November the cloudiest with only 13 sunny days. January was also the warmest with an average daily temperature of 24 degrees. Nine months of 2023 had above average temperatures, this December being one exception.