The extremes of the hottest New Zealand summer on record

Friday, 23 February 2018

Families frolic in the water during the hottest summer on record.

New Zealand has been a sweatbox, a cyclone-swept wasteland, a tropical paradise and a sodden sponge at various times over the summer.

The extremes have left meteorologists scrambling for new phrases to describe a summer that – barring 'a mini Ice Age' – will be the hottest on record.

The creek at the corner of Shaggery Rd and Motueka River West Bank Road rages on Tuesday during the storm.

For many Kiwis, keeping an eye on the weather can be a competitive event, with everyone keen to record the highest temperatures.

Alexandra reached 38.7 degrees Celsius on January 30. The next three hottest temperatures of the summer were recorded in Clyde, Middlemarch and Cheviot – on the same day.

**READ MORE:

Aucklanders escape the heat - but not their iPhones - by taking a late afternoon swim at Pt Chevalier Beach.

* Onto the roof as Shaggery Creek, near Motueka, becomes a torrent

* Couple watch as 'raging two-metre wall of water' washes shipping container away

Camilla Rombouts with her two nieces, and her sister Anna-Rose - all of whom struggled to save their family farm near Motueka during ex-Cyclone Gita.

* 'No reason' to call state of emergency earlier in Tasman, as ex-cyclone Gita hit

Residents beside Shaggery Creek were swamped on Tuesday by ex-Tropical Cyclone Gita's heavy rain.

* Golden Bay cut off

* Cyclone Gita: full coverage**

We asked Neighbourly users how their summer fared. Of the 1130 respondents, half agreed their summer had been one of contrasts: 'hot and spicy, wet and stormy'.

More than 36 per cent said their summer had been a 'winner'. One in 10 reckoned it had been a fairly typical Kiwi summer. Meanwhile, 4 per cent responded: 'Summer? What summer?'

The Rombouts family farm after ex-Cyclone Gita hit.

The Niwa weather experts knew the cause of the season's sticky heat – sea surface temperatures were 6C or 7C above average in some places.

Complaints about the stifling heat – and at times near 100 per cent humidity – were common, with many New Zealand homes ill-equipped to handle the conditions.

A forestry site upriver is the likely place where the logs came from which formed the dam.

But for all the long, hot days spent by a beach, there seems to have been almost as many spent hiding inside, out of the rain.

This summer has had a sting its tail, namely a former tropical cyclone by the name of Gita, which tore across the centre of the country this week.

Sea temperatures were as much as seven degrees above average in some parts of New Zealand. Kiwis flocked to beaches like Pt Chevalier.

At Gita's peak, some 202mm of rain fell on Kaikōura in an 18-hour period. That's which is 28 per cent of the town's annual rainfall. Huge rainfalls were recorded in the Tasman district on Tuesday - Waingaro copped 211.5mm, Takaka got 204.2mm, Motueka received 180.1mm.

Raging torrents washed debris through the Rombouts family farm near Motueka. In a desperate effort to divert the rushing waters, the family worked frantically to dig trenches and erect makeshift rock walls while younger members feared for their lives.

Shaggery Creek has now turned into a raging river.

Across the river, a young couple were forced onto the roof to escape the deluge engulfing the old tobacco workers' cottage they rented from the family.

Lyn Rambouts inspects the damage to one of her cottages, where the occupants were stuck on the roof for hours.

Four cars were taken by the deluge: 'They bobbed up and down like leaves.'

Meanwhile four cars careered down the torrent, bobbing in and out of the water like leaves before disappearing over what was once West Bank Rd.

'There were already waterfalls and landslips up from us, and if the winds were going to get worse we didn't know if we should stay in the attic of the house because the river was sweeping up huge logs,' says Camilla Rombouts, who was visiting from Auckland for a family reunion at her parents' farm.

As the waters continued to rise, some members of the family sought higher ground and pitched a tent – masquerading the refuge as an adventure to the frightened children, aged between four and 10.

'We started to process the fear for our lives, and the kids as they were crying thinking they were going to die.'

It was over three hours before civil defence could get to the family, and to the couple who had clambered onto the cottage roof.

Gita destroyed cottages, uprooted floorboards and tore away sections of the Rombouts farm.

Metres of silt has been left behind which is impossible to walk through, sinking half a metre in places.

The vulnerability of the land die to the increasing number of storms in the regions is something that will need reassessing in the coming weeks, she said.

'I'm still in shock, I think everyone is,' Camilla Rombouts says. 'I have moments of feeling the grief of loss for my parents' land, but also for the tenants who were established there for over 20 years.'

Gita was not the only nasty surprise to stop by over the summer.

Tropical cyclone Fehi hammered the Wellington region in early January, causing winds of up to 140kmh, toppling tress, cancelling flights, turning wheelie bins into missiles, and whipping up waves that flooded roads. Nelson, the West Coast and Dunedin were hit the hardest, with homes in Nelson evacuated, central Greymouth shut down, and a state of emergency declared in Buller and Dunedin.

And in case you were thinking there might be a little sunshine in summer's dying days, Metservice is forecasting severe weather for much of the South Island and lower North Island – beginning today.