OAMARU’S BEST KEPT SECRET – The weather When I moved go Oamaru the best part of three years ago, the one thing that the locals were all quick to tell me about were “the easterlies”. I learned that easterly winds are the curse of living in Oamaru and that they make life miserable. I was told that plan to turn the woolstores down by the harbour on the way to Portside and the penguins into apartments was a project doomed to failure because of the easterlies. I was also told that even if previous mayor Alan McLay had been able to go ahead with his plan to subdivide Forrester Park above the harbour the sections wouldn’t sell because “nobody would what to build an expensive home that faced into the teeth of the easterlies”. And because Chez Dick is on one of the highest points on the South Hill and we stare direct north and east, we were warned life would be miserable when the easterlies got up. And so it’s gone on. The fact is that any town or city on the East Coast of New Zealand is going to regularly get an easterly wind and the further South you go, the colder that easterly will be. However, after almost three years here I can categorically state that while there are easterlies, they are nowhere near as miserable as those experienced in Dunedin or Christchurch – cities where I have spent some years. In Dunedin, the easterly is funnelled as it whistles down the harbour and is therefore concentrated and it can be truly miserable. It just drones on and on and on. But nothing compares to Christchurch. Here, you can have a blazing hot summer’s day – 30 degrees or more then by mid to late afternoon up comes the easterly sea “breeze”, temperatures plunge and people scurry for jackets, coats, scarves - or indoors. Christchurch’s summer easterlies are of epic, Cecil B de Mille scale. So Oamaruvians, stop beating yourselves up over the easterlies. They ain’t as bad as you make out. In fact, the weather in Oamaru has been one of the great surprises to us. We are well sheltered from the South — the worst of most southerly storms either head out to sea and hit Christchurch, or they are sent inland over the back of the Kakanuis, leaving us unscathed. OK, we’re not Rarotonga, nor Auckland, but the weather here is wonderful. Rainfall is low, winters are mild, summers are moderate, but we surely have the best autumns in the country. It’s dry, its calm and autumn seems to go on forever. But, let’s keep it a secret otherwise the weather, combined with the best houseprices in New Zealand, might attract an influx of people like me. Best keep talking up just how mean the easterlies can be. . .
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 02:55:46 +0000
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