NZ's hottest ever day: Melted roads, striking workers and 26,000 dead chickens

Friday, 26 January 2018

Six-year-old Darren Crouse charges through a pool of water in Christchurch's Cathedral Square on February 5, 1973. Temperatures soared into the high 30s in Canterbury in the days leading up to the 42.4C record-breaker.

This story was first published on January 26, 2018.

What's that? Bit hot this week? Before you complain too loud, spare a thought for the people of Rangiora who suffered through February 7, 1973.

The Press' account of the soaring temperatures in its February 8, 1973 edition listed the hottest temperature as 42.3C in Balmoral Forest. The record-breaking 42.4C in Rangiora was confirmed later.

The North Canterbury town registered 42.4 degrees Celsius that day, still the hottest temperature ever recorded in New Zealand. Most parts of Canterbury and Marlborough topped 40C as well. It was so hot, tens of thousands of chickens perished in overheated poultry farms, factory workers walked off the job, schools and offices closed early, railway lines buckled and the thermometer recording the temperature in Cathedral Square literally went off the chart.

Frank Rapley was assistant town clerk for the Rangiora Borough Council at the time.

Two young women cool off in the Stewart Fountain on the corner of Hereford and Colombo streets, Christchurch.

'She was hot all right,' he said, 'Real hot.'

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Waiting for a bus in Cathedral Square on February 5, 1973.

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'We'd had a gasworks [which produce tar as a by-product] and a lot our roads were tar and of course they all melted. The shop owners were moaning about tar going into their shops . . . It was liquid, just about.

'The water supply got hammered too.'

The Press reported that 26,000 chickens were lost at 12 poultry farms across Canterbury. One farmer lost $14,000 worth of birds in two hours. By 10am, staff at three freezing works in Christchurch had walked off the job, leaving stock stranded in the yards. Workers at a glass plant also downed tools. Firefighters battled a huge blaze in the Ashley Forest and countless others across the region. 'At no time after 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. did the [Christchurch Fire Brigade] have fewer than eight fires to attend at one time,' the paper said. A meeting at Riccarton Racecourse somehow managed to go ahead, although the metal running rail buckled and had to be cut with a hacksaw 'to allow the running of the Benson and Hedges inter-island race'.

It was too much for the thermometer on the Government Life building in Cathedral Square. 'When the gauge was changed over to the Celsius scale, more equipment would have been needed to enable it to register more than 39 degrees,' The Press noted. 'As 39 degrees was more than the record temperature in New Zealand at the time, it was decided that it would not be worth fitting the extra equipment.'

Many schools and offices had admitted defeat by lunchtime and sent everyone home, although Waimakariri District Mayor David Ayers, a teacher at Mairehau High School at the time, recalled soldiering on in vain:

'I remember my last class walked into my room. It was too hot for them to misbehave, it was too hot to teach. So for 40 minutes we just sat and looked at each other.'

Victoria University climate professor James Renwick, a student at another Christchurch high school that day, recalled being let out when the mercury hit 40C.

'I can remember biking to school at 8.30 in the morning and it was 36 degrees.'

Conditions that day were almost unique, he said.

'It was just the perfect set-up. The nor'west wind was exactly at right angles to the Southern Alps and the stability of the air was such that it was just right. The air went up over the mountains, it was very moist, so a lot of rain fell and that actually heats the air.

'When [the air] comes down the other side it compresses back down to sea level again and is lots warmer than it was when it started. It was a real fluke that we had the winds just at the right direction.'

The hot spell across much of New Zealand of late was different, Renwick said, driven mostly by high pressure systems or storms from the north Tasman Sea bringing tropical air down over the country. Next Thursday could be different though, he said.

'We've got this low passing just on to the southern tip of the South Island and north of that there's this big northwesterly flow and it's come from the north Tasman. It's brought a bunch of very moist tropical air. Who knows? We could be in for some really warm conditions in Canterbury next week.'