It might be a cool and rainy day, but I know spring has arrived when the first bud bursts on our magnolia tree. It’s 11°C (52°F) at midday, with no wind and the horizon is hidden in mist. Absolutely glorious. Spring and autumn are my favourite times of the year.
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Another Spectrum 
19 Aug, 2015 at 1:08 pm
Wow. I forget that so many bloggers are in other parts of the world. Here in the Eastern United States, we’re nearing the end of summer/beginning of fall. Spring is a long ways off.
And right now, 52 degrees Fahrenheit sounds pretty good to me – we’re having a heat wave.
PS: That’s a great photo.
19 Aug, 2015 at 1:50 pm
Ha! I can smell fall on its way! Both are my favorites as well. So nice to always be able to look forward to one or the other, as needed.
19 Aug, 2015 at 2:42 pm
Thanks for the compliment regarding the photo.
One of the things that has often annoys me is that much of the promotional material that clutters my inbox makes the assumption that it is a specific season. It’s understandable if the material is related to a particular country, but much of what I receive is supposedly “international”. However a quick Google reveals that 90% of humankind live north of the equator, so I guess the assumption of hemisphere makes sense from a marketing point of view.
We’ve seen some of the outcomes of the heatwave in the US on our news – especially some of the huge fires America is experiencing. In the region of NZ I live in, it’s considered a heatwave if the temperature reaches 30°C (86°F) on two consecutive days, and any day above 25°C (77°F) is considered hot. On the other hand if daytime temperature doesn’t reach 10°C (50°F) it’s considered very cold.
19 Aug, 2015 at 3:35 pm
Beautiful picture. It’s still summer where I am. I’m certainly not looking forward to the winter.
19 Aug, 2015 at 4:04 pm
Awesome picture Barry. I didn’t realize NZ’s climate was so moderate. We are warm here in Ottawa Canada – 32- 35 for the last few days and into the next few. We are typically bout 25-30 this time of year so it is a bit warm. We typically have our hottest days in late August and sometimes early September. After that is cools off very fast and we generally see frost at night by ;late October. Fall is my favorite season as well. Typically from mid September to late October day time temps are 15-20 C and coo,l at night. The leaves turn color and crunch under foot. Beautiful.
Quite honestly Barry the last few years we haven’t had much of a spring. It has gone from winter and snow to summer and temps in the 20’s over a period of a few weeks in April/May. Very strange.
Great picture – hope your spring goes well.
19 Aug, 2015 at 9:18 pm
I’ve just compared monthly averages for Feilding and Ottawa, and the most striking difference is the greater range of temperatures you experience. According to the temperature charts on Weather2 for Ottawa and Palmerston North (the nearest city to where I live), the difference between the maximum average monthly temperature and the minimum average monthly temperature for Ottawa is 41°C, whereas for Palmerston North it’s 18°C. It’s even more pronounced if you compare the differences between absolute maximum and minimum temperatures: 70°C for Ottawa, and 36°C for P.N. Our extremes don’t even vary as much as your averages!
We’ve only had three days this year where the minimum temperature has dropped below 0°C, and are unlikely to see any more.
The one thing that this region lacks is seasonal variations in its landscape. Native trees are evergreen, and we see a sprinkling of snow approximately once in 10 years. Few native trees have visually prominent flowers as they are pollinated predominately by moths, so our forests are a dark green all year round. When I saw a proper autumn landscape on my first visit to Japan in 1971, I was absolutely blown away by its beauty.
20 Aug, 2015 at 2:13 am
That’s pretty amazing – the differences in weather. And trees. I’ve seen pictures of Japan in fall and it is very beautiful – much like it is around here. We have a mixture evergreen and deciduous so some areas are very colorful and some just stay green. It is always a treat to go for a drive in the fall after the first frost and see the colors changing.
The amazing part of the comparison though was the range of temps. I have always lived in a climate with a wide range – from -40 C (or F , same thing 😀 ) to +40 C (with humidity included) and I have a hard time imagining a much less broad range. WE have three sets of clothes – summer, winter and spring/fall. We have different tires for our cars, use different windshield washer, and some even use different motor oils. Our gas and diesel all has different additives for different seasons. I have a hard time imagining life without continual season changes. 😀
20 Aug, 2015 at 10:12 am
When my wife first arrived in NZ, she had a hard time adjusting to the change in climate here. The temperature range in her part of Japan is similar to yours, and they dress by seasons too. Here we can wear winter woollies and long-Johns one day and a tee-shirt and shorts the next.
One of the features of the NZ climate is that day to day temperatures can vary by as much as seasonal variations. For example, one winter day might have a high of 18°C followed the next day with a high of 7°C. On the other hand, we might have a summer day of 30°C followed by one of 16°C. In fact even daytime temperatures on a single day can vary by as much as 10°C.
I noticed that in Japan temperatures hardly varied day to day. There’s just a gradual transition as the seasons progress.
20 Aug, 2015 at 3:54 pm
That’s true here in general as well – the daily temp seldom changes quickly in winter – with one exception. We call them cold snaps =- the temp will drop to -30 c and stay there for a few days to a week and then return to normal. That’s not as bad as it sounds though because it inevitably is associated with a high pressure area, so it is sunny with a low humidity. Humidity is our bug-bear (local slang for “annoyance”) as the more humid it is in winter, the colder it feels and the more humid it is in summer, the hotter it feels.
20 Aug, 2015 at 4:29 pm
Everyone who moves to NZ complains about the unpredictability of our weather – even some Brits.
The north Island has a relatively high level of humidity all year round. In the centre of the Island there is a township and an army base known as Waiouru. It has what everyone calls a lazy wind – It’s too lazy to around you, so it goes through you instead, chilling you to the core very quickly. The wind-chill caused by the very high humidity has to be experienced to be believed.
On the other hand, I spent one beautiful New Year’s day in Japan flying kites with 6 – 12 inches of snow on the ground and zubzero temperatures, eventually stripping down to no more than I would wear on a warm autumn/spring day in NZ. The humidity was so low that there was absolutely no wind chill factor at all.