238 days ago

April's Weather in Kāpiti: Warm & Sunny

Kāpiti and Levin were the warmest places in central New Zealand, with Kāpiti having the warmest April in nine years, giving us a five-month summer.

Our daily average maximum temperature was 20.4C, only the third time in over a decade we have reached 20 degrees. The longtime average is 19.4C, which was also last year’s average. Twenty degrees was recorded on 18 days, with the highest temperature of 26.4C on April 19, the warmest April day in 11 years, also the highest since early February. Levin’s maximum was a couple points higher at 20.8C, but Kāpiti’s overall mean temperature of 16.5C was the highest in central NZ, and half a degree above Levin.

The two-month drought ended with around 65mm of rain mostly in the first week, followed by further showers during the third week, giving a monthly total of 108mm, 40 above the historic average, but very welcome given how dry the soil was after the drought. The last week of the month was again dry and unusually warm and we were again looking forward to a good shower.

April's sunshine equivalent to 17 sunny days was exactly the historic average.

With May’s temperatures averaging around 17C we can no longer expect any summery days over 20C.

Photo: Sunrise on the warmest April day in 11 years

More messages from your neighbours

1 day ago

Driven On The Akatarawa Rd Lately?

Marie from Waikanae

If so, its good to know you are still alive and reading this.

We have a function to go to over Christmas up that way and having heard a few hairy stories about the road, I went up there on Thursday to check it out. The road's ok, narrow and winding, but not much worse than a Wellington hill suburb. What was pretty scary was the behavior of other drivers. Three vehicles heading the other way at speed would have crashed into me if I hadn't been pulled off the road. I had pulled in to check the address when a truck came flying past, taking up all of the narrow road at speed. There is no way the driver would have been able to stop had they come around the corner immediately in front of me. The other two drivers came hurtling past as I had turned in to turn around and come back down the hill. They were also driving at speed and taking up most of the road. Coming back down I passed another car coming up and estimate that the safe speed to pass another car was about 30-35 kms.p.h. So, now we're thinking, do we go to the function or not.? Feels a bit like we're taking our life in our hands going up there. Drivers appear to be overconfident, and they are courting serious injury.