Climate & Weather

Across the North Island, soil moisture levels decreased island-wide during the past week due to meagre rainfall and above average temperatures.

Novel handwriting recognition project casts new light on historic weather data.

Across the North Island, soil moisture levels increased in many places during the past week. In the South Island, soil moisture levels generally decreased in the east and a slightly increased in the west.

Across the North Island, moderate to large increases in soil moisture levels were observed in most locations due to substantial rainfall in the past week. In the South Island, soil moisture levels increased everywhere during the past week, and significantly so in many places.

Across the North Island, soil moisture levels decreased everywhere during the past week due to meagre rainfall and above average temperatures. The most significant decreases were observed across the northern half of the North Island, where soil moisture levels are now below normal nearly everywhere from Northland to Waikato and Bay of Plenty.

Across the North Island, soil moisture levels generally decreased slightly during the past week. In the South Island, soil moisture levels decreased slightly in most locations during the past week, although slight increases were observed in coastal Otago and Southland.

This weekend, after a rather cool October, the beginning of November brings out the heat.

New Zealand’s changing ocean environment has prompted the call to develop a system that will keep closer tabs on information from scientific monitoring buoys so the data they produce can be shared as widely as possible.

Expect to hear a lot more about climate change in the news in the weeks ahead – and a lot about NIWA’s work underpinning the science that is signalling a warmer world right now and its effects in the future.

While we know that glaciers are sensitive to changes in their local climate, our understanding of exactly how mountain glaciers will respond to climate change is incomplete.

NIWA is using serious games to look at problems holistically, support understanding and give a framework for climate change adaptation decision-making.