In just five months, Auckland has had 91% of its annual average rainfall.
As of May 26, with winter still weeks away, barely 100mm of rain separates the year so far from the 15-year average, MetService meteorologist Ashlee Parkes confirmed.
Between the Auckland Anniversary flooding and Cyclone Gabrielle, most won’t be surprised to learn that it’s been an especially wet year.
The average rainfall for January 1 to May 26 was 397mm – that means the city has had 2.5 times its usual rainfall for the same period of time.
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That 1019.2mm of rain made itself felt, causing landslides, destroying roads and permanently affecting communities all over Auckland.
Parkes said January was Auckland’s wettest on record, while February was the fourth-wettest on record.
That data comes from the Auckland Airport weather station.
On the other side of town, University of Auckland Associate Professor Anthony Fowler has been looking at the Albert Park weather station data.
He found that May not only tipped the city closer to 100% of its annual average rainfall, but also beat a more than 100-year-old record for heavy rain.
In October 1917, Auckland’s Albert Park recorded 2310mm over a 12-month period, , more than had been recorded at the same area since at least 1853.
Rainfall like that hadn’t been seen there until this week, which poured the same amount and then some: 2337mm in the last 12 months to May.
Fowler spotted something else interesting about our two immense rain dumps – each were preceded by a period of drought.
“I think there is something going here, but I can’t say what yet,” he said.
Parkes said if the climate continues to warm, more rain is likely.
Other
The lightning strike hit as heavy rain and hail fell in Auckland.
”The science tells us that as the atmosphere warms it has the ability to hold moire moisture and that will fall as rain,” she said.
“If we see more warming, there is the likelihood we will see more rain. Whether or not that’s the new normal I couldn’t say”
Fowler believes the data shows a return to rain levels of before, even if people don’t remember Auckland being a rainy place.
“From a climate perspective, our memories are very poor,” he said.
Stuff
With all this rain, Auckland is on track to have one of its wettest years on record.
Once, teaching a graduate class, he asked what was the most recent extreme weather event his students could remember.
They each commented how warm it had been – but it had snowed in Auckland for the first time in decades amid an historic polar blast.
I don’t trust people’s memories at all – including my own,” he said.
MetService predicts there is more rain to come before June arrives, starting Saturday and lasting all the way until at least Tuesday.