New Zealand Weather

We've been lucky so far. The weather has been mostly cooperative.

Christchurch: mostly sunny.
Kaikoura: partly cloudy
Wellington: partly to mostly cloudy
Tongariro: mostly cloudy to overcast
Taupo: mostly cloudy with occasional showers and fair bits

New Zealand's weather is a forecaster's nightmare. There are dozens of microclimates because of the influence of the oceans, mountains, valleys, plains, downsloping, etc. The high- and low-pressure centers are the same as in the northern hemisphere, except that they rotate in the opposite direction. (I’m still trying to get used to the weather maps!)

In NZ, the warm, humid breezes are from the northeast. In the US, they tend to be from the southwest. The North Island has been dealing with a northeast flow (and lots of showers) for the past week or so. Hopefully, some of it will clear up before long.

We did, by the way, walk past the home of NZ MetService in Wellington. The headquarters is on top of a hill in the Botanic Gardens.