June 3, 2025 • 17 mins
A warmer winter is coming, meaning we might not need our heaters as much as we usually would.
However, these conditions won’t be great for those heading away for ski season.
And, while the puffer jackets can stay in the wardrobe, those rain ones will be getting a workout – because with a warmer winter, comes rain.
Today on The Front Page, Niwa forecaster Chris Brandolino is with us, to give a glimpse into what the weather might look like in the months ahead.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Gielder. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. A
warmer winter is coming now. This means a few things.
Power bills might ease up for those of us who
are heated dependent during chilli.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Nights, which is a positive right.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
However, these conditions won't be great for those heading away
for ski season.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And while the powfer jackets can stay in.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
The wardrobe, perhaps those rain ones will be getting a
workout because with a warmer winter comes rain. Today on
the front Page, NIWA forecaster Chris Brandolino is with us
to give us a glimpse into what the weather might
look like in the months ahead. Chris, it felt like
(00:55):
we had a very wet autumn. Every week there was
some warning as thunderstorms or severe rainfall.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So exactly how wet was it, it depends on.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Where you were.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Now, look, we'll be issuing our Autumn Climate Summary, which
is a retrospective look at the autumn season. Marjor Abile
may not to come, I think later this week, let's
say maybe Thursday, believe, but just in the spirit of
a sneak peek for friends, it really depends on where
you were. So for example, Northland, you know, was quite wet,
So Kaitaya had one hundred and seventy five percent of
(01:25):
normal rainfall. Typically Kaitaya will get about three hundred and
thirty one millimeters of rain, but they had well over
five hundred millimeters of rainfall for the autumn season, so
it was.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Pretty wet there.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
But look if you go to places in different parts
of the North Island. For example, if you were to
go to say mant Rupehu right at the chateau, they
only had two hundred and four millimeters, that's only a
third of what they normally get, so quite low rainfall there. Likewise,
and Thames they only had seventy six percent of normal.
But you're right, there were certainly a lot of places Nelson,
(01:58):
I'm just looking and scanning. I list in front of me,
over toward winch More and over toward Lincoln Broadfield, christ
Church had a pretty wet autumn and a lot of
that was off the heels of say one or two
big rain events. So yeah, it was certainly wet from
many areas of New Zealand for the autumn season, but
it was not wet everywhere was.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
It unusual the places that did it experience a wet autumn.
I know autumn and winter can obviously be wet seasons,
but the severity of it in some places seemed a
little unusual.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Again, there were the big couple of big rain events
we had and that caused some flooding. Think of what
happened in Nelson with those downpours back in late May,
and that was a very short but sharp rain event,
and you know we had a lot of rainfall and
in just three or four hours we.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Had some flooding.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
I think we had parts of Northland had some minor
to modest flooding going back to earlier in the autumn season.
So yeah, there were I don't think there were the
really high end rain events that caused significant flooding. We
did have the big rain events. That one event that
maybe is a standout in terms of flooding. So if
(03:04):
you remember Banks Peninsula and areas around christ Churts, they
had a state of emergency and they had you know,
I think one two times normal what they would typically
get in April, but it fell in basically a couple
of days, so you double the amount with falls in
thirty days but you're getting it in a couple of days,
and you know, we get some big problems. We had
(03:24):
the red warning for Wellington that was for the wind event,
so that wasn't really rain, that was a strong wind
event there. So yeah, so it was an active autumn,
but like a lot of times, it came and fits
and stops. We had some extended periods of dry weather.
We had dryness and drought going back to the late
summer early autumn in places like Tenanaki, places like southwest
Wakato and the Manawatu King Country had some pretty dry
(03:46):
conditions and some of those areas I've still seen dry
soils right now, particularly in the Manawatu region, and soils
are usually dry for the time of.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Year out of there.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
Well, winter is upon us, but of course what can
we expect. You know what, you may need to buckle
your seatbelts. It could be a wild ride. There's going
to be a bit of everything into the mix. As
far as things go. We could have, of course, some
pretty good storms. We could have some cold outbreaks good
for the skiers, and we're going to get some fine
days as well. When we look at the atmosphere, there's
going to be lots of variety, so we're going to
mix things around. It's like some flour, some extra sugar,
(04:19):
mix it round, and some spice and bomb you get
all those things going on. Warmer than normal.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So let's look ahead to winter.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I've sayen that it's going to be warmer than usual
but still quite wet.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So what sort of weather systems are we looking at here?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, so you're right, a couple of ways to answer that.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So in summary, we are expecting a warmer than average
winter as a whole. Now I'm using my words carefully
as a whole, because if you've seen the weather predictions
for later this weekend, the weekend, there's going to be
a significant cold snap, and you know, you maybe think, well,
Juice christ you said it was going to be warmer
than average winter, how come WI is it going to
be so cold this weekend?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, both can be true.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
That's because we give a three month outlook, not a
three day outlook. So a three month outlook there is
a lot of water to pass under that bridge. And
this is just one weekend of thirteen for the winter season, right,
So we are expecting this pretty big cold snap Friday,
Saturday and Sunday, and that may come with some snow.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
To low levels.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
We'll see Even if the snow to low levels or
a meaningful amount of snow to low levels does not
occur Friday into Saturday, it will be darn cold with
squally day on Friday, with showers and thunderstorms, maybe some hail.
But unfortunately, if you're a skier or a snow enthusiast,
or feel like cold temperatures for that matter, I don't
(05:39):
think that cold snap that we're going to see from
Friday into the weekend is going to have much staying
power and we're probably gonna warm back up.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And that will be the theme for the winter season.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
That is, yes, we'll get cold snaps, but we're probably
gonna get less of them than what is typical, and
that is because we're expecting air flows for the winter
season less. So look, you don't have to be ANEWA meteorologists,
you don't have to be a rocket scientist. You know
it ain't gonna get cold if you don't have a
cold wind direction. It's very simple in that regard. Now,
(06:11):
the trick, of course, is trying to isolate and determine
and pick what is that overall wind direction wind to
being that can be challenging. Our sense is that yeah,
there will be souther least, but they're going to be
more infrequent than usual, so we're not gonna see a
lot of them. We'll see more northeast and northwest winds
than usual. So again, more northeast and northwest winds than
usual doesn't mean every day, every week, every you know,
(06:33):
month or hour of the winter. It just means more
than what is typical and that will drive temperatures up. Also,
our ocean temperatures are running warmer than average around New Zealand,
and that means it'll be hard to sustain for long
cold snaps. The one we're going to see this this
upcoming late week and especially this weekend which may kind
of sneak into Monday, that will last three or four
(06:55):
days or so. But you know, we're not going to
see these cold snaps that last you know, six, seven, eight,
nine days.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
It's just not going to happen. Be very unlikely anyway, should.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Say, yeah, when we speak about a warmer winter, I'm Australian,
so I think anything under eighteen is cold. Sure, So
so what kind of temperatures are we talking when we're
(07:25):
saying it's warmer than usual.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
It depends, like it depends on where you are, what
you call home. But just by way of example, the
winter average, So this is like, this is a lot
of assumption. So we're taking we're a we're smoothing things
out over three months, right, and we all know how
there can be variability. Look, this is a climate I'm
going to answer your question. Just give me a second.
(07:49):
This is a climate Outlook, what we're attempting to do
is predict Mother Nature's personality over a three month period. Right,
weather is Mother Nature's mood. Now, if if we if
we kind of get mother Nature's personality correct or at
least in the right direction, on more days than not,
the mood will align itself with the personality. But in
some days it won't. So there's a lot of Smoothingess
(08:11):
what I'm saying now, The typical mean temperature that's the
average for say Auckland for the winter season is eleven
point six degrees. So that means if you take the
high and the low for each day during winter and
you add it up and divide by what it's in
ninety one days or whatever, the number of days is
you would get eleven point six. What we're saying is
(08:33):
that the mean temperature for the winter season, our expectation
is to be higher than that. Now, for Kaitaya it's
twelve and a half degrees, but for Dunedin it's seven
point three. For christ Church it's about seven and a
half seven point four. So what we're saying is that
for the winter season, our expectation is that where we
land come September first winter is in the rearview mirror,
(08:56):
the mean temperature will be higher than that. But that
can come in many ways, you know, just like I
can tell you if you run a business right and
I say, hey, for the next three months for the winter,
you're going to have above average profits, You're like, sweet, awesome.
But does that mean every weekend is going to be
above average profits?
Speaker 6 (09:16):
No.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
That could come in the form of one really crazy
month where your profits are just out of control. You
have crazy good profits for one month, and then the
second month maybe.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
They're about average.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
They're okay, they're not great, they're not awesome, they're okay,
and then the third month are below average. But guess what,
because that first month was so extraordinary high with profits
that really swamped out or muted out the other two
months which did have a factor, but when it all
came out in the wash, it was still above average.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Profits same before their temperature.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
We could have one month where it's so exceptionally warm
that the other two months, I don't want to say
almost don't matter, but they become less relevant in terms
of trying to influence what that final number is. So
this is a longer term outlook, and these outlooks are
trying to identify themes, and that theme is for warmer
than average temperatures, and these things can be hard to communicate,
(10:10):
and for someone listening to this, they can be like,
what the.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Heck does that mean? How can I make a decision?
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Well, what it means is that if we're going to
see less cold snaps now, less cold snaps is not
zero cold snaps, I e. What will happen this weekend.
Maybe it means you're run your heater less frequently. Okay,
Maybe it means that you can enjoy more days outside
and not be so cold more days than usual. Anyway,
Maybe it means if you're a snow enthusiast, if you're
a snowboarder, if you're a skied Well, maybe that means
(10:37):
you're simply not going to have a great season. Potentially,
I think the North Island ski fields maybe especially challenged.
We'll see what happens for the South Island ski fields.
Warmer than average winter for South Island ski fields, well,
if you're high enough in the altitude, it could still
be warmer than average, but still.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Cold enough for snow.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
In Europe had to use helicopters and trucks to carry
snow to the Bear slopes in order to stay open,
and in Japan, energy costs were so high that they
had to keep the machinery shut down and just wait
for natural snow to fall down the sky. Snow cover
is projected to shrink globally as the planet worms, So
(11:19):
this is a challenging future for ski resorts.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
How concerning is it that the temperatures will be kind
of warmer than usual? Is that another sign of climate
change or does it just happen in every now and again?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, both are true.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Look, grass will grow by itself, right throwing fertilizer, that's
a much different story and it can overcome a lot.
Same thing with athletes. Athletes are high performing, they're talented, people.
You give them HDH or steroids, they can perform a
lot better. Look, climate change doesn't cause extreme weather. Here's
what climate change does three simple things. It makes extreme
(11:54):
events more likely. It makes extreme events, extreme weather events,
more frequent, and it makes them more extreme, more likely,
more frequent, more extreme. I didn't say it creates them.
It does not create them because this has always happened
in the past. We've always had extreme events. And what
is an extreme event. It could be too much rain,
too little rain, both ends of the spectrum, really high temperatures,
(12:17):
really active weather. So climate change because of a warmer
earth that energizes the atmosphere, and you tend to hit
those extremes more likely to hit them, more frequent, and
those extremes can be more well extreme. How concerning is it? Well,
warmer than usual winters, it's become almost background noise because
(12:38):
I think a lot of people are used to hearing it,
at least that's my sense. Maybe I'm wrong, and what
happens is that something maybe it becomes normalized. But in reality,
when we see warmer than average conditions and you see
the trend, that's the concerning part is you see how
these are becoming more common and more frequent. So look, unfortunately,
(12:59):
when in twenty twenty five, if it turns out to
be warmer than average as a whole, Again, that's over
a three month period when you're smoothing out the peaks
in the valleys, When you compare it to a winter,
and say two thousand and ninety, so twenty ninety, that
may actually be a cool winter. So in other words,
if you take winter twenty twenty five, if it turns
(13:21):
out to be warmer than usual, and you hop pop
it into a time machine and you exit that said
time machine, and you're in the year two thousand and
ninety and you're armed with winter twenty twenty five, odds
are that'll be a cool winter.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And finally, Chris, I know that we always ask you
this when you're wrong, but can you look into your
crystal bowl and do we know anything about what spring
and summer might look like yet?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Dark nights, bright days? Does that work? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Look, when you're going out several months, three months, that's
a challenge. But when you go out six nine months,
you can imagine that's even more challenging. So the short
answer there is there's a little bit of insight. The
longer answer is what you need to do where a
person like myself who's in this sort of business, is
you try to identify a climate driver, and we do
(14:10):
this with even our three month outlooks and a climate
driver basically as well, who's at the steering with Mother
Nature's car? Who's driving the car? If you know who's
driving the car, odds, are you know which direction you're
gonna favor or lean toward? Now at the moment, we're
not in Linina or in El Nino. You probably heard
of those things, especially al Ninho. Those are climate drivers.
(14:30):
We call that enso e nso ens sands for El
Nino Southern oscillation.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
It basically means are we.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
In El Nino, are you in lia Nina or what's
in the middle, which is neither.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Right now we're in neither. We're neutral.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
However, we are coming out of Lininia, which was last summer,
and there is fore casts to be this Linina. I
don't want to call it a hangover, that be li
Ninia kind of tendencies, These Linina like conditions. The you know,
we got to we like to put things in nice
even bins and keep a clear cut in reality life
(15:04):
is not a light switch. It's a spectrum.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
You know.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
It's not on or off. There's a lot of spots
between zero and one, on and off. And it's the
same thing with and so and lino self and oscillation.
So while technically we are in neutral, we're actually on
the Lainia side of neutral. Okay, well, what does that mean,
Smark I. Well, typically when we have Lninia, we tend
to favor airflows coming from the northeast to the east,
(15:27):
the north somewhere in that direction, and that tends to
favor wetness for the eastern and northern North Island, tends
to favor dryness for the western part of both islands,
which is why we had that dryness and drought for
the western North Island. If we recall Tedanaki wat Cutha
were quite dry, even western parts of the South Fountain
that had a great summer. By the way, if you
(15:48):
talk to people in Westport, Hokitik in host A Fjordland,
great summer sunshine and warm temperatures, dry weather, and the
indications are that sort of airflow may be favored as
you work away into spring or summer. So this warm
theme may persist if our airflows don't come from a
coal direction, i e.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
South or southwest, something.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Like that, and that may favor wetness for northern and
eastern parts of the country as we work away into
the spring and summer season.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Thanks for joining us, Chris, You're.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Welcome, Thanks for having me, and hopefully that was useful.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(16:50):
tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
Gielder. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. A
warmer winter is coming now. This means a few things.
Power bills might ease up for those of us who
are heated dependent during chilli.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Nights, which is a positive right.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
However, these conditions won't be great for those heading away
for ski season.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And while the powfer jackets can stay in.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
The wardrobe, perhaps those rain ones will be getting a
workout because with a warmer winter comes rain. Today on
the front Page, NIWA forecaster Chris Brandolino is with us
to give us a glimpse into what the weather might
look like in the months ahead. Chris, it felt like
(00:55):
we had a very wet autumn. Every week there was
some warning as thunderstorms or severe rainfall.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So exactly how wet was it, it depends on.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Where you were.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Now, look, we'll be issuing our Autumn Climate Summary, which
is a retrospective look at the autumn season. Marjor Abile
may not to come, I think later this week, let's
say maybe Thursday, believe, but just in the spirit of
a sneak peek for friends, it really depends on where
you were. So for example, Northland, you know, was quite wet,
So Kaitaya had one hundred and seventy five percent of
(01:25):
normal rainfall. Typically Kaitaya will get about three hundred and
thirty one millimeters of rain, but they had well over
five hundred millimeters of rainfall for the autumn season, so
it was.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Pretty wet there.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
But look if you go to places in different parts
of the North Island. For example, if you were to
go to say mant Rupehu right at the chateau, they
only had two hundred and four millimeters, that's only a
third of what they normally get, so quite low rainfall there. Likewise,
and Thames they only had seventy six percent of normal.
But you're right, there were certainly a lot of places Nelson,
(01:58):
I'm just looking and scanning. I list in front of me,
over toward winch More and over toward Lincoln Broadfield, christ
Church had a pretty wet autumn and a lot of
that was off the heels of say one or two
big rain events. So yeah, it was certainly wet from
many areas of New Zealand for the autumn season, but
it was not wet everywhere was.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
It unusual the places that did it experience a wet autumn.
I know autumn and winter can obviously be wet seasons,
but the severity of it in some places seemed a
little unusual.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Again, there were the big couple of big rain events
we had and that caused some flooding. Think of what
happened in Nelson with those downpours back in late May,
and that was a very short but sharp rain event,
and you know we had a lot of rainfall and
in just three or four hours we.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Had some flooding.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
I think we had parts of Northland had some minor
to modest flooding going back to earlier in the autumn season.
So yeah, there were I don't think there were the
really high end rain events that caused significant flooding. We
did have the big rain events. That one event that
maybe is a standout in terms of flooding. So if
(03:04):
you remember Banks Peninsula and areas around christ Churts, they
had a state of emergency and they had you know,
I think one two times normal what they would typically
get in April, but it fell in basically a couple
of days, so you double the amount with falls in
thirty days but you're getting it in a couple of days,
and you know, we get some big problems. We had
(03:24):
the red warning for Wellington that was for the wind event,
so that wasn't really rain, that was a strong wind
event there. So yeah, so it was an active autumn,
but like a lot of times, it came and fits
and stops. We had some extended periods of dry weather.
We had dryness and drought going back to the late
summer early autumn in places like Tenanaki, places like southwest
Wakato and the Manawatu King Country had some pretty dry
(03:46):
conditions and some of those areas I've still seen dry
soils right now, particularly in the Manawatu region, and soils
are usually dry for the time of.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Year out of there.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
Well, winter is upon us, but of course what can
we expect. You know what, you may need to buckle
your seatbelts. It could be a wild ride. There's going
to be a bit of everything into the mix. As
far as things go. We could have, of course, some
pretty good storms. We could have some cold outbreaks good
for the skiers, and we're going to get some fine
days as well. When we look at the atmosphere, there's
going to be lots of variety, so we're going to
mix things around. It's like some flour, some extra sugar,
(04:19):
mix it round, and some spice and bomb you get
all those things going on. Warmer than normal.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So let's look ahead to winter.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I've sayen that it's going to be warmer than usual
but still quite wet.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So what sort of weather systems are we looking at here?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, so you're right, a couple of ways to answer that.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So in summary, we are expecting a warmer than average
winter as a whole. Now I'm using my words carefully
as a whole, because if you've seen the weather predictions
for later this weekend, the weekend, there's going to be
a significant cold snap, and you know, you maybe think, well,
Juice christ you said it was going to be warmer
than average winter, how come WI is it going to
be so cold this weekend?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, both can be true.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
That's because we give a three month outlook, not a
three day outlook. So a three month outlook there is
a lot of water to pass under that bridge. And
this is just one weekend of thirteen for the winter season, right,
So we are expecting this pretty big cold snap Friday,
Saturday and Sunday, and that may come with some snow.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
To low levels.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
We'll see Even if the snow to low levels or
a meaningful amount of snow to low levels does not
occur Friday into Saturday, it will be darn cold with
squally day on Friday, with showers and thunderstorms, maybe some hail.
But unfortunately, if you're a skier or a snow enthusiast,
or feel like cold temperatures for that matter, I don't
(05:39):
think that cold snap that we're going to see from
Friday into the weekend is going to have much staying
power and we're probably gonna warm back up.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And that will be the theme for the winter season.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
That is, yes, we'll get cold snaps, but we're probably
gonna get less of them than what is typical, and
that is because we're expecting air flows for the winter
season less. So look, you don't have to be ANEWA meteorologists,
you don't have to be a rocket scientist. You know
it ain't gonna get cold if you don't have a
cold wind direction. It's very simple in that regard. Now,
(06:11):
the trick, of course, is trying to isolate and determine
and pick what is that overall wind direction wind to
being that can be challenging. Our sense is that yeah,
there will be souther least, but they're going to be
more infrequent than usual, so we're not gonna see a
lot of them. We'll see more northeast and northwest winds
than usual. So again, more northeast and northwest winds than
usual doesn't mean every day, every week, every you know,
(06:33):
month or hour of the winter. It just means more
than what is typical and that will drive temperatures up. Also,
our ocean temperatures are running warmer than average around New Zealand,
and that means it'll be hard to sustain for long
cold snaps. The one we're going to see this this
upcoming late week and especially this weekend which may kind
of sneak into Monday, that will last three or four
(06:55):
days or so. But you know, we're not going to
see these cold snaps that last you know, six, seven, eight,
nine days.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
It's just not going to happen. Be very unlikely anyway, should.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Say, yeah, when we speak about a warmer winter, I'm Australian,
so I think anything under eighteen is cold. Sure, So
so what kind of temperatures are we talking when we're
(07:25):
saying it's warmer than usual.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
It depends, like it depends on where you are, what
you call home. But just by way of example, the
winter average, So this is like, this is a lot
of assumption. So we're taking we're a we're smoothing things
out over three months, right, and we all know how
there can be variability. Look, this is a climate I'm
going to answer your question. Just give me a second.
(07:49):
This is a climate Outlook, what we're attempting to do
is predict Mother Nature's personality over a three month period. Right,
weather is Mother Nature's mood. Now, if if we if
we kind of get mother Nature's personality correct or at
least in the right direction, on more days than not,
the mood will align itself with the personality. But in
some days it won't. So there's a lot of Smoothingess
(08:11):
what I'm saying now, The typical mean temperature that's the
average for say Auckland for the winter season is eleven
point six degrees. So that means if you take the
high and the low for each day during winter and
you add it up and divide by what it's in
ninety one days or whatever, the number of days is
you would get eleven point six. What we're saying is
(08:33):
that the mean temperature for the winter season, our expectation
is to be higher than that. Now, for Kaitaya it's
twelve and a half degrees, but for Dunedin it's seven
point three. For christ Church it's about seven and a
half seven point four. So what we're saying is that
for the winter season, our expectation is that where we
land come September first winter is in the rearview mirror,
(08:56):
the mean temperature will be higher than that. But that
can come in many ways, you know, just like I
can tell you if you run a business right and
I say, hey, for the next three months for the winter,
you're going to have above average profits, You're like, sweet, awesome.
But does that mean every weekend is going to be
above average profits?
Speaker 6 (09:16):
No.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
That could come in the form of one really crazy
month where your profits are just out of control. You
have crazy good profits for one month, and then the
second month maybe.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
They're about average.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
They're okay, they're not great, they're not awesome, they're okay,
and then the third month are below average. But guess what,
because that first month was so extraordinary high with profits
that really swamped out or muted out the other two
months which did have a factor, but when it all
came out in the wash, it was still above average.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Profits same before their temperature.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
We could have one month where it's so exceptionally warm
that the other two months, I don't want to say
almost don't matter, but they become less relevant in terms
of trying to influence what that final number is. So
this is a longer term outlook, and these outlooks are
trying to identify themes, and that theme is for warmer
than average temperatures, and these things can be hard to communicate,
(10:10):
and for someone listening to this, they can be like,
what the.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Heck does that mean? How can I make a decision?
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Well, what it means is that if we're going to
see less cold snaps now, less cold snaps is not
zero cold snaps, I e. What will happen this weekend.
Maybe it means you're run your heater less frequently. Okay,
Maybe it means that you can enjoy more days outside
and not be so cold more days than usual. Anyway,
Maybe it means if you're a snow enthusiast, if you're
a snowboarder, if you're a skied Well, maybe that means
(10:37):
you're simply not going to have a great season. Potentially,
I think the North Island ski fields maybe especially challenged.
We'll see what happens for the South Island ski fields.
Warmer than average winter for South Island ski fields, well,
if you're high enough in the altitude, it could still
be warmer than average, but still.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Cold enough for snow.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
In Europe had to use helicopters and trucks to carry
snow to the Bear slopes in order to stay open,
and in Japan, energy costs were so high that they
had to keep the machinery shut down and just wait
for natural snow to fall down the sky. Snow cover
is projected to shrink globally as the planet worms, So
(11:19):
this is a challenging future for ski resorts.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
How concerning is it that the temperatures will be kind
of warmer than usual? Is that another sign of climate
change or does it just happen in every now and again?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, both are true.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Look, grass will grow by itself, right throwing fertilizer, that's
a much different story and it can overcome a lot.
Same thing with athletes. Athletes are high performing, they're talented, people.
You give them HDH or steroids, they can perform a
lot better. Look, climate change doesn't cause extreme weather. Here's
what climate change does three simple things. It makes extreme
(11:54):
events more likely. It makes extreme events, extreme weather events,
more frequent, and it makes them more extreme, more likely,
more frequent, more extreme. I didn't say it creates them.
It does not create them because this has always happened
in the past. We've always had extreme events. And what
is an extreme event. It could be too much rain,
too little rain, both ends of the spectrum, really high temperatures,
(12:17):
really active weather. So climate change because of a warmer
earth that energizes the atmosphere, and you tend to hit
those extremes more likely to hit them, more frequent, and
those extremes can be more well extreme. How concerning is it? Well,
warmer than usual winters, it's become almost background noise because
(12:38):
I think a lot of people are used to hearing it,
at least that's my sense. Maybe I'm wrong, and what
happens is that something maybe it becomes normalized. But in reality,
when we see warmer than average conditions and you see
the trend, that's the concerning part is you see how
these are becoming more common and more frequent. So look, unfortunately,
(12:59):
when in twenty twenty five, if it turns out to
be warmer than average as a whole, Again, that's over
a three month period when you're smoothing out the peaks
in the valleys, When you compare it to a winter,
and say two thousand and ninety, so twenty ninety, that
may actually be a cool winter. So in other words,
if you take winter twenty twenty five, if it turns
(13:21):
out to be warmer than usual, and you hop pop
it into a time machine and you exit that said
time machine, and you're in the year two thousand and
ninety and you're armed with winter twenty twenty five, odds
are that'll be a cool winter.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And finally, Chris, I know that we always ask you
this when you're wrong, but can you look into your
crystal bowl and do we know anything about what spring
and summer might look like yet?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Dark nights, bright days? Does that work? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Look, when you're going out several months, three months, that's
a challenge. But when you go out six nine months,
you can imagine that's even more challenging. So the short
answer there is there's a little bit of insight. The
longer answer is what you need to do where a
person like myself who's in this sort of business, is
you try to identify a climate driver, and we do
(14:10):
this with even our three month outlooks and a climate
driver basically as well, who's at the steering with Mother
Nature's car? Who's driving the car? If you know who's
driving the car, odds, are you know which direction you're
gonna favor or lean toward? Now at the moment, we're
not in Linina or in El Nino. You probably heard
of those things, especially al Ninho. Those are climate drivers.
(14:30):
We call that enso e nso ens sands for El
Nino Southern oscillation.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
It basically means are we.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
In El Nino, are you in lia Nina or what's
in the middle, which is neither.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Right now we're in neither. We're neutral.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
However, we are coming out of Lininia, which was last summer,
and there is fore casts to be this Linina. I
don't want to call it a hangover, that be li
Ninia kind of tendencies, These Linina like conditions. The you know,
we got to we like to put things in nice
even bins and keep a clear cut in reality life
(15:04):
is not a light switch. It's a spectrum.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
You know.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
It's not on or off. There's a lot of spots
between zero and one, on and off. And it's the
same thing with and so and lino self and oscillation.
So while technically we are in neutral, we're actually on
the Lainia side of neutral. Okay, well, what does that mean,
Smark I. Well, typically when we have Lninia, we tend
to favor airflows coming from the northeast to the east,
(15:27):
the north somewhere in that direction, and that tends to
favor wetness for the eastern and northern North Island, tends
to favor dryness for the western part of both islands,
which is why we had that dryness and drought for
the western North Island. If we recall Tedanaki wat Cutha
were quite dry, even western parts of the South Fountain
that had a great summer. By the way, if you
(15:48):
talk to people in Westport, Hokitik in host A Fjordland,
great summer sunshine and warm temperatures, dry weather, and the
indications are that sort of airflow may be favored as
you work away into spring or summer. So this warm
theme may persist if our airflows don't come from a
coal direction, i e.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
South or southwest, something.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Like that, and that may favor wetness for northern and
eastern parts of the country as we work away into
the spring and summer season.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Thanks for joining us, Chris, You're.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Welcome, Thanks for having me, and hopefully that was useful.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(16:50):
tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
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