Southern Hemisphere Winter 25

[PalmCode]

3 hours ago, Tyrone said:

Your Chatham looks like it has only one ring of trunk. That’s real cool. My biggest one isn’t far behind that one so hopefully in the next year I’m hopeful for a flower, then maybe seed. 

Yea, hard to see from that photo but its actually on its third ring now and its second flower. First flower was 3 months ago so they go pretty quick. You'll be happy when your one hopefully  seeds, shouldn't bet too far away by the sounds. Might have to cut off any nearby nikau flowers of any other variety's so you dont get hybrids.

[Tyrone]

It got to 20.7C today before a cold front came through. Another stronger cold front tomorrow and rain all week. 

[Tyrone]

On 7/5/2025 at 12:11 PM, PalmCode said:

Yea, hard to see from that photo but its actually on its third ring now and its second flower. First flower was 3 months ago so they go pretty quick. You'll be happy when your one hopefully  seeds, shouldn't bet too far away by the sounds. Might have to cut off any nearby nikau flowers of any other variety's so you dont get hybrids.

True, about the hybrid possibility. I only have bauerii flowering at present and it will be a long time before I get mainland sapida to flower. I’m going to have to keep an eye on that. 

[Tyrone]

Absolutely freezing today as a cold front came through. Official temps were a min of 10C and maximum of 11C with high winds and a feels like temp of 1C as the wind was coming off northern Antarctica or thereabouts. 
If you look at a graph of temps from midnight the max today was 12.3C at around 3.30am and the temp had dropped to around 9.5C at 11.30am to then just dance around 10-11C all day. We had very strong squalls and one of my Rhopalostylis baueri which hadn’t started to trunk yet had some roots broken and is laying sideways on the ground now. It may be toast. I’ve never had a palm upended like that in a storm before. Warmer tomorrow with a max of 15C. Got the fire raging at the moment. It’s 8.6C and raining around 9.30pm. Had about 12mm of rain today. 

[Bennz]

18 month old bananas still looking ok despite the coldest night time temperature I've ever recorded in this site, 2.5C about 10 days ago.  NZ winter tends to be pretty long and dreary so looking forward to Spring.

 

[Bennz]

1 minute ago, Bennz said:

18 month old bananas still looking ok despite the coldest night time temperature I've ever recorded in this site, 2.5C about 10 days ago.  NZ winter tends to be pretty long and dreary so looking forward to Spring.

 

Ok what have I done, why are these pictures both on their sides?? I can't work out how to fix this.

[PalmCode]

13 hours ago, Bennz said:

Ok what have I done, why are these pictures both on their sides?? I can't work out how to fix this.

Yea not sure why but if the images are too tall vertically they flip over horizontal on this site.  cropping them a little is the only way i can find to fix it?

Those bananas are looking good for this time of year with a lowest temp of 2.5c.

[Tyrone]

2 minutes ago, PalmCode said:

Yea not sure why but if the images are too tall vertically they flip over horizontal on this site.  cropping them a little is the only way i can find to fix it?

Those bananas are looking good for this time of year with a lowest temp of 2.5c.

That’s flowering as well. 
I think our coldest has been around 3C so far which is actually warm for this time of year.  On Sunday morning inland from my area got down to zero, but my place didn’t drop below 4.5C due to a bit of cloud and occasional rain. It was a cold night though. The first two weeks of July are statistically coldest and they are basically done now with no freezing temps likely in the next few days. I hope this is the sign of winters to come. We’ve had a good amount of rain too especially compared to last year. 
Im looking forward to spring too. Winters can be long dreary events down here. 
 

[Bennz]

6 hours ago, Tyrone said:

Winters can be long dreary events down here. 
 

The difference is we get a 6 month long winter,  5.5months of spring and autumn and 2 weeks of summer.

[Bennz]

On 7/15/2025 at 5:06 PM, Bennz said:

The difference is we get a 6 month long winter,  5.5months of spring and autumn and 2 weeks of summer.

 

I suppose I should not complain too much, we did hit 23.5C two days ago, which is pleasant for mid winter.  Having a frost free site this far South has some advantages for sure.

 

[Tyrone]

Well, we are now into the second part of winter. The first two weeks of July are statistically the coldest. Luckily I haven’t seen anything below a 4C min this month. We got down to about 3C in June. Warmest day was 23.5C in the first week of June. Almost got to 21C on July 4. However we’ve had good rain and temps in the mid teens with a couple of low double digit days. Got lots of mid teens weather and rain until August. Monday is a forecast of 12C with a strong cold front. So definitely not balmy winter weather but no frost so far. Looking forward there is no concerning frost risk for the rest of July that I can see.
 

Hurry up spring. 

[cbmnz]

Here we go, heading into a 10 day + stretch of clear weather. Glad are almost month past the shortest day as it means just a little bit more solar angle  and duration than it could have been.  If the forecast is accurate and nothing below -1 will be fine.  All but A. Alexandrae are just too big to protect now so will just have to see what happens. 

The ground is saturated after 46mm on July 11 set off what feels like the wettest 7 days of the year to date and hopefully the whole year.  This might actually reduce the amount that the ground can cool off and hence the air at 2m than it otherwise might have. 

 

[Tyrone]

Got a big cold front coming through today and at least a week of rain. No clear nights at least in the short term, but cold windy conditions are forecast. 

[Tyrone]

We’ve had 31mm of rain in the last 24hrs most falling lastnight. Some small hail fell this morning. The place is absolutely drenched with standing water everywhere. Going for a top of 13C today. 

[cbmnz]

Supposed to be the coldest night of this sequence and possibly the year tonight, but the temp is holding up ok at 11pm local., actually 0.5C above this time last night, which wasn't saved by any cloud or breeze and reached -1.1C. Hopefully continue the pattern of not hitting freezing until 4am with only 4 hours below.

 

[Tyrone]

2 hours ago, cbmnz said:

Supposed to be the coldest night of this sequence and possibly the year tonight, but the temp is holding up ok at 11pm local., actually 0.5C above this time last night, which wasn't saved by any cloud or breeze and reached -1.1C. Hopefully continue the pattern of not hitting freezing until 4am with only 4 hours below.

 

I’m hoping a breeze or some cloud saves you from freezing. 

[Tyrone]

We’ve had 135mm so far for July with 10 days to go and a few good cold fronts to come through yet. My place in places is under water and a very heavy downfall now could be an issue. 

[cbmnz]

Weird, have bottomed out at -1.4 three times in the last 6 days.. Each time only 3-4 hours below freezing.  Today reached 17.3 after a -1.4C start.  Seems almost zero damage so far. 

 

 

 

[Tyrone]

On 7/23/2025 at 6:30 PM, cbmnz said:

Weird, have bottomed out at -1.4 three times in the last 6 days.. Each time only 3-4 hours below freezing.  Today reached 17.3 after a -1.4C start.  Seems almost zero damage so far. 

 

 

 

I’m glad you haven’t seen any damage. That scenario would have me freaking out.

Could be the coldest night in 2 years tonight. Forecast is for 4C with minimum of 1C if in the wrong spot. If you put a 2-3C error in there we could be headed for some frost. Perth went below zero this morning with the coldest night in 15 years. Some suburbs went down to minus 1.9C. We’ve still got a bit of cloud around and it’s 9C at 9.30pm but the prediction is for the cloud to clear away after midnight. Some places about 90km north are already at 3C. I took pictures of my vulnerable plants just in case they look different tomorrow. Let’s hope the clouds hang around. 
 

We are up to 167mm of rain for July so far and I’ve got heaps of standing water everywhere so hopefully that will emit some heat into the surrounding space if it gets real cold. 

[SeanK]

Do you guys get frost? We have it sometimes starting at +3°C with no wind.

[tropicbreeze]

Late July has seen a bit of cloud but it's only thin hazy stuff. Realistically, the "Possible shower" for Saturday is more likely wishful thinking. Generally it's still the usual dry and sunny weather on into August. But August should start to see the temperatures kicking up a bit, particularly later in the month.

[Tyrone]

10 hours ago, SeanK said:

Do you guys get frost? We have it sometimes starting at +3°C with no wind.

Yes, but luckily for me not every year. Frost can occur at temps as high as 3C, but for my landscape if frost occurred at 3C it wouldn’t worry me as it would only appear on exposed grass and things with zero canopy and out in the open where I would put really hardy stuff anyway. 
 

Lastnight we dodged a bullet. We bottomed out at a balmy 2.8C. No frost that I could see except maybe way out in the middle of the sheep paddock. Lots of zeros and minuses showed up in SW WA lastnight but that’s why they can grow cherries in some of those areas and I can’t. I’d rather grow palms anyway. 

[Tyrone]

8 hours ago, tropicbreeze said:

Late July has seen a bit of cloud but it's only thin hazy stuff. Realistically, the "Possible shower" for Saturday is more likely wishful thinking. Generally it's still the usual dry and sunny weather on into August. But August should start to see the temperatures kicking up a bit, particularly later in the month.

If I had your winter temps in summer I could grow so many other things (but probably couldn’t grow some of the things I do). It’s so hot up there in Darwin. I’ve got to get back for a visit. I’m long overdue a visit. 

[cbmnz]

Had a really  erratic 24 hours of temperatures Thursday midday to Fri midday. 

It seems the macro scale pressure gradient went to near zero on Thursday afternoon, there was nothing driving any breeze.  My station recorded an usually mild afternoon of 17-18C considering the day started with a dip to -1C,  that persisted while the sun was still up.  It was still 17C at 5pm so I thought great, too warm now to be a frost at all.

However, saw a very fast drop off after sun down. It dipped below 0 by 3:45am Friday, but about 5:45am the temp suddenly rose again above freezing.

Looking outside from 6:45am onwards, there was no cloud/fog or noticeable breeze. I found one PWS nearby that matches my temp data almost perfectly and they have wind and humidity readings to help decode the mystery, evidently a breeze carrying some warmer more humid air came through about 6am.

This is not my data, I only have temp, not humidity and windspeed but my temp data is an almost exact match to this.

The odd thing though is that many PWS very nearby did not get this and had their coldest mornings of the year getting close to -3.

The upshot is, still got quite a bit of green on fully exposed banana leaves. If  don't have any proper freeze in August and beyond (which was the case last year) , it will be a first, have never had these bananas not have the whole exposed canopy brown off over winter.  Still a month of winter to go of course.

 

[tropicbreeze]

On 7/26/2025 at 10:09 AM, Tyrone said:

If I had your winter temps in summer I could grow so many other things (but probably couldn’t grow some of the things I do). It’s so hot up there in Darwin. I’ve got to get back for a visit. I’m long overdue a visit. 

Unfortunately, one of the big downsides to the climate here is the long period of very low humidity, some 4 to 5 months. The rest of the year anything will grow. Things like    Amorphophallus titanum, Garcinia mangostana and Prichardia pacifica grow easily for me right through the dry season (with irrigation). And Cyrtostachys renda is common in gardens and landscaping.  But many tender rainforest plants just start to curl up and die when the dry season sets in.

Most people visit here during the dry season but my favourite time is the wet season. Some say it's too hot and humid, so what's wrong with a bit of sweat? It's a very dynamic time of year.

Incidentally, despite the forecast for minimums of 20 and 19, the past couple of days have been 23.1 and 23.4. Sometimes it's the other way around (lower).

[Tyrone]

Going for a max of 12C today and quite a bit of rain as we go into a full on southerly. Forecast hail as well. Quite a bit of cloud is going to be around for a few days so nights should be above freezing. It’s gradually warming up to a sunny 19C on Friday which will be nice. 

[Tyrone]

Look at crazy temp graph for today. It was just an awful day, with wind, rain, frequent hail, and just miserable. We officially made 12C but for most of the time I was looking we were around 8C!!! Since midnight we’ve recorded 20mm of rain so we are now on 200mm for July. Some models were predicting snow for my area but luckily that never happened. I’ve never actually seen snow in my life before so that would have been different. The winds were coming from about 55S deep in the southern ocean. I’m looking forward to some sun and 19C on Friday and just a break from the rain. 

[cbmnz]

Yet another simillar frost this morning. Just under 4hrs below, bottomed out -1.3C. Even the A. Alexandrae can just tolerate this.

[Tyrone]

1 hour ago, cbmnz said:

Yet another simillar frost this morning. Just under 4hrs below, bottomed out -1.3C. Even the A. Alexandrae can just tolerate this.

Hopefully now we are in August the probability of a bad freeze is diminishing a bit. Glad to hear your landscape is coping at the moment.

[Tyrone]

Well on Friday night around 10.30pm the temp had already fallen to about 4.5C with clear skies, no wind, and central pressure of 1037hPa, so I thought “here we go” I could wake up to a white winter wonderland in the morning. To my surprise that didn’t happen. It was about 2C at sun up. Not warm but enough. The only place ice formed was a piece of exposed guttering on the house which is always the first part to freeze. No crunchiness on the exposed part of the lawn either. I was quite surprised. We may have been saved by the drenched landscape just emitting its own heat. 
So the day was a beautiful sunny day and we reached 19.5C, the warmest in days. No clouds either. By the late morning the wind picked up as a cold front was approaching. Due to the NW flow almost all night we sat around 15-16C which is what we would get in summer. The rain fell at about 6am and then the temp dropped back to 12C. 
So we went from the coldest night of winter to probably the warmest night of winter in years in the space of two days. 

[cbmnz]

6 hours ago, Tyrone said:

Well on Friday night around 10.30pm the temp had already fallen to about 4.5C with clear skies, no wind, and central pressure of 1037hPa, so I thought “here we go” I could wake up to a white winter wonderland in the morning. To my surprise that didn’t happen. It was about 2C at sun up. Not warm but enough. The only place ice formed was a piece of exposed guttering on the house which is always the first part to freeze. No crunchiness on the exposed part of the lawn either. I was quite surprised. We may have been saved by the drenched landscape just emitting its own heat. 
So the day was a beautiful sunny day and we reached 19.5C, the warmest in days. No clouds either. By the late morning the wind picked up as a cold front was approaching. Due to the NW flow almost all night we sat around 15-16C which is what we would get in summer. The rain fell at about 6am and then the temp dropped back to 12C. 
So we went from the coldest night of winter to probably the warmest night of winter in years in the space of two days. 

Not scientific but the frosts this year just haven't been as hard as normal, even when conditions have been ripe. Hope I'm not tempting fate 😅 

[Tyrone]

12 minutes ago, cbmnz said:

Not scientific but the frosts this year just haven't been as hard as normal, even when conditions have been ripe. Hope I'm not tempting fate 😅 

Well I’m glad. The same is true here. No frost yet. 

I’m going to say it “ We are going to be just fine” 😀

July total rainfall was 212mm. It’s been a wet winter so far. From Jan 1 until July 31 we are at 656mm of rain. Not bad for here. We may finish in the 900s for 2025 but still 4 months to go. 

[Jonathan]

Cold here today, then looking a bit above average for the rest of the week, though some cool nights. We could really use some proper rain.

[cbmnz]

Just got back from 7 days in the Wanaka/Queenstown area.  It's extremely beautiful there with the mountains and lakes but did miss seeing palms. Saw one property had a  front yard of Trachycarpus Fortunei but otherwise saw no palms. The coldest morning was about -4C at 8am.  It reminded me of local frosts from my childhood that don't seem to get anymore.

In shaded areas, the frost persisted all day. The native Cordyline Australis however grow perfectly fine and show no damage. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tyrone]

I think Spring is trying to poke its head in. We’ve got a few days of 19-21C in the next week with Wednesdays forecast up to 24C now. Everything will love that including the bananas, and maybe it can dry the standing water back to just standing mud. 

[Jonathan]

16 hours ago, Tyrone said:

I think Spring is trying to poke its head in. We’ve got a few days of 19-21C in the next week with Wednesdays forecast up to 24C now. Everything will love that including the bananas, and maybe it can dry the standing water back to just standing mud. 

Yep, I'm tempted to call it as well, we've got some 17 and an 18 degree days forecast this week, although I think a cold front is following that.

[Tyrone]

Well this was probably the warmest winters day I’ve ever experienced today. We hit 27C and it was as windy as heck. Right now after the sun has gone down it’s still 23C. Really weird. There’s a damaging wind warning out too. 
If the wind stays up and the clouds come in it’s going to be a really warm night. The avg this time of year is 7C min to 17C max. 

[SeanK]

1 hour ago, Tyrone said:

Well this was probably the warmest winters day I’ve ever experienced today. We hit 27C and it was as windy as heck. Right now after the sun has gone down it’s still 23C. Really weird. There’s a damaging wind warning out too. 
If the wind stays up and the clouds come in it’s going to be a really warm night. The avg this time of year is 7C min to 17C max. 

If we get a January day above 21°C, we start to worry about tornadoes.

[Tyrone]

1 hour ago, SeanK said:

If we get a January day above 21°C, we start to worry about tornadoes.

That is interesting. That’s not a normal thing here. 

[SeanK]

3 hours ago, Tyrone said:

That is interesting. That’s not a normal thing here. 

Average Jan high is 10°C, average low is 0°C with std dev of 4C°