Image: screencap from NZ Met Service video
The New Zealand Herald has reported Autumn is hitting hard in parts of the country.
“Dreams of stifling summer temperatures in Hawke’s Bay may soon become bitter autumn memories as temperatures plummet to the lowest recorded this year to date,” said the New Zealand Herald.” “According to MetService meteorologist Dan Corrigan, the coldest highs and lows were recorded on two days in March: Friday, March 22 and Saturday, March 30.”
The Hawke’s Bay region lies on the south-eastern coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
Snow fell on the peaks of the Kaweka Mountain Range inland from the coast during the March 27 through April 1 period, where temperatures dipped below freezing, Corrigan reported.
“It’s around 2000 meters and then the snow would’ve been getting to lower than the freezing level again,” Corrigan said. “It tends to fall a few hundred meters before the freezing level, which is the point in the atmosphere where you go high enough to reach zero degrees.”
The late-March/early-April high temperatures recorded at Hawke’s Bay Napier Airport were 5 ½ degrees Celsius lower than normal for the time of year. The nighttime low temperatures recorded there were more than 10 degrees Celsius below the average minimum for late-March.