Climate agency NIWA may have changed its name to Earth Sciences, but it is still making legacy media journalists look like muppets by giving them incorrect data on NZ climate records.
All the major media outlets yesterday published previews of an expected weekend heatwave in New Zealand caused by hot desert winds blowing across the Tasman from Australia.
The New Zealand Herald went further, interviewing Earth Sciences staff and reporting:
“The places most at risk of breaking January heat records were in Northland, Coromandel and Hawke’s Bay,” MetService meteorologist Michael Pawley said.
“We’re seeing places like in Northland, such as Whangārei, or in the Coromandel, like Tairua – even Napier in the Hawke’s Bay – they’re getting really close to their records.
“Napier is forecast with 36C on Sunday, and their January record is 36.9C in 1979, so they could quite easily bump over the edge there.
“In Whangarei, which is expected to reach 31C on Sunday, the January record is 31.2C, set in 2017.”
Dealing with the last first, Whangarei’s January record was set during NZ’s hottest summer – 1935 – when it hit 96F (35.6C) at the end of January, more than 4C hotter than its record in the climate change era, and consistent with Hamilton also experiencing record heat that summer many degrees hotter than we’ve seen since (and the 1935 heatwave is now at the centre of a High Court case around RNZ’s reporting).
Napier hit 101F (38.3C) in January 1885 and 100F (37.8C) in January 1899.
Hastings is predicted to hit between 37C-38C this weekend, but in reality reached those heights a century ago in January 1900, December 1920, and January 1946 – all of those dates missing from the Earth Sciences database.
With climate change adding an extra 1C already built into today’s temperatures, the media should note that a genuine comparison requires adding that 1C back to the historic temps if you want to see the apples-for-apples version; ie, 38C in Hastings this weekend really needs to be 39C to equate to the historical record, let alone break it.
The Herald then quoted Nava Fedaeff from Earth Sciences as saying there had been only three days in New Zealand history on which temperatures had reached 40C, whereas such high temperatures were significantly more common in Australia and Europe.
Unfortunately Fedaeff was wrong, she was repeating a false NIWA claim debunked in 2024 by a Centrist investigation:
NIWA VS JOURNALIST: WHO’S RIGHT ON 40C DAYS?
In late December 2023, NIWA’s Ben Noll gave an interview to Stuff, where the news company say he told them:
Only three days have hit at least 40C in New Zealand, said Noll and two of those were recorded in the South Canterbury town of Timaru. “Timaru is home to two of the three hottest days overall on record, so definitely a claim to fame.”
This is where the rubber hits the melting bitumen for NIWA. Noll has all the power and resource of a $160 million government agency. He can put agents in suits, sunglasses and black electric SUVs with tinted windows anywhere in the country. I’ve just got a laptop and time to burn.
So is NIWA’s vast computer database correct? Has NZ really only experienced 40C temperatures on three days? Or is the journalist right? Let’s find out.
Days above 40C
Alford, February 13 1887, 40.6C
Alford, January 7 1908, 41.7C
Fairlie, January 22 1908, 42.2C, Geraldine, January 22 1908, 41.1C, Timaru on 40C
Kurow, February 6 1920, 42.8C, Earnscleugh, February 6 1920, 41.7C
Rangiora (Whiterock Station), February 8 1949, 44.4C
Rangiora (Whiterock Station), February 9 1949, 43.3C
Balmoral Forest, Hurunui, February 8 1973, 42.2C, Jordan Station 42.3C, Timaru 40C
Timaru, February 6 2011, 41.3C
Eight days at 40C or higher. Not three.
The power of comprehensive historical records over a badly designed NIWA database with decades of data holes, brutally demonstrated.
