Four Seasons in One Day...

is a song by Crowded House and though the song is mostly about the challenges of love, it aptly describes the weather here in New Zealand. New Zealand has a maritime climate which means that the weather can (and does) change rapidly. Yesterday, we awoke to sunny, clear skies. At noon, it was gloomy, overcast and a bit cooler. Later in the day it rained and then it was clear again an hour later. And then we were pelted by gale force winds for most of the evening and early morning hours. It is nuts! Without a large continent to moderate things, New Zealand is subject to the whims of weather patterns that bellow up from the Antarctic without much to stand in its way.

Here in New Zealand, the weather can be described as "fine" (sunny, clear skies), "dull" (gloomy/overcast), "settled" (a period of several days when weather is "fine" or dry), or "unsettled" (as above but rain likely to occur). We also have northwesterlies (norwesters), northeasterlies, southerlies, and the like to describe the weather patterns. Norwesters are notoriously warm and dry as they arrive off the Australian continent and southerlies are notoriously cold as they are weather systems coming off Antarctica.

And now for a little geography.....the South Island of New Zealand lies on the 45th Parallel of the Southern Hemisphere. This is the same parallel that runs through Salem, Oregon which is noted by a boring traffic sign along Interstate 5 which you may or may not have noticed in your travels up and down the Willamette Valley. Christchurch is at 43 degrees latitude which you would not have noticed in your travels up and down the Willamette Valley. New Zealand is also the most isolated country of its size on the planet. So we are really out there. Thanks for tuning in.