Discomfort In the Hive

Love the Cold

The coldest temperature ever recorded in New Zealand was one which transpired in 1905.  In Ranfurly the temperature dropped to -25.6 degrees Celsius in 1903.  Now, that's not to claim that the temperature had never been as cold or substantially colder in the centuries before 1905.  It's just that, as far as we know, there was no-one around to measure such things.

But since that time way back in 1903 we have had regular records (albeit adjusted in recent years by meteorologists with axes to grind).  Moreover, we have had an alleged century of global warming.  All that carbon dioxide spilling out into the atmosphere, warming up the planet.

Consequently, it came as some surprise to read that yesterday we came mighty close to that record low of 1905.

New Zealand has nearly shuddered itself to the MetService's record books after the Canterbury high country plummeted to -20 degrees overnight. MetService Meteorologist Stephen Glassy said most of the South Island recorded sub-zero temperatures including the -20 at the Pukaki Aerodrome on the edge of Lake Pukaki. [NZ Herald]

Now we are well familiar with the proverb about swallows and summer.  But a temperature reading approaching the record low of one hundred years ago--that has to make a few climate "scientists" squirm uncomfortably in their over endowed chairs.