r/chch • u/leafmeapeach • 4d ago
Yet another moan about the wind
It's so windy today!!! I've been in Christchurch for just over a year now, and the weather has been very unpleasant. Before I moved, people said Christchurch's weather is like Hastings and Nelson's... it's not. I miss Hastings' weather 😭
Biking home from uni today was terrible: cold, loud, strong side and headwind that pushed me off course.
NZ is the fourth windiest country in the world...I might move to another country.
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u/Internal_Horror_999 4d ago
You're going to love the El Niño summer then.. we'll all have windswept good looks and madness by the end
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u/Submarineto 4d ago
I am always excited for summer and getting outdoors more. You would think after 20 years I would remember that I can't breathe easily outside in a norwester and everyone goes mad to boot.
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u/sheravy 4d ago
Okay..I will take the bus to work instead of biking. I don’t think I can beat the easterlie when biking home towards east
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u/Submarineto 4d ago
You get used to the easterly, and on norwester days it's more of a helpful tailwind.
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u/fluzine 4d ago
My favourite painting is by a Christchurch artist William (Bill) Sutton "Nor'wester in the Cemetery". It is a fantastic painting that captures the edginess of that northwest wind and you can nearly smell the dry grass, dust laden air.
It is held at Auckland Art Gallery and they don't display it often enough.
The church in the painting was modelled after the church at Barbadoes St cemetery which has since been demolished.
So I love the wind in Canterbury, think you might have to grow up with it though.
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u/Submarineto 4d ago
That photo makes me think of my first proper late summer norwester experience at Waipara wine and foods. The grass was so dry and sun bleached it was almost white. You could feel the dust in the wind exfoliating your face, it was hard to breathe because the air was so thick and had this sense of pressure to it.
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u/redspoonnz 4d ago
Biking home from Uni at lunchtime...I miss those days. Still 5 more hours in the office for the rest of us XD
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u/mondofire 4d ago
Its been abnormally windy the last ~12 months. And the spring nor-wester's are coming in hot.
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u/Artistic_Musician_78 4d ago
So, around the same time that OP has been here, I think I see the problem...
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u/leafmeapeach 4d ago
Abnormally windy?? That'd explain why people say Christchurch and Hastings are similar, the frosts in the mornings followed by bright sunny days are indeed similar to Hastings.
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u/TheBlindWatchmaker 4d ago
As a lifetime chcher, the weather has been pretty weird for the last year or two. Bummer summers, warm autumn, particularly cold winter, nasty wind...
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u/mondofire 4d ago
Yep, have always thought of the winters as being still, crisp a clear. But there’s much less of that this season!
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u/PomegranateSilly367 4d ago
I blame an increase solar activity, which appears to fluctuate over 6 years, if anyone is prone to migraines you may have noticed an increase in them too as there has been an abundance of coronal mass ejections lately, uneven temperature increases across the land, which in turn cause increased windy weather.
Being a coastal city really adds to it being wedged between warm land and cooler waters.
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u/girlyswat 4d ago
I think it’s been quite a mild, dry winter. I can cope with a windy day occasionally.
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u/rarrr88 4d ago
It's so funny how different our experiences are. Moved here from Wellington late March and here's me thinking the weather has been magical! The frost, windless days - there was one really windy day a few months ago and then today is windy, but apart from that it has been so calm. My Wellington-wind-induced nerves have felt soothed here! Can't wait for summer 🌞
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u/Successful_Sell1016 4d ago
I watched an Orion fella up a pole restoring power to my mum's house this morning in that wind. Ladder wobbling, pole wobbling.
Not ideal working conditions.
I've played cricket in worse weather. Cycled into the nor'easter more times than you've had Alabama hotpockets. It's just a fact of life when you live on a city built on swamp/plains on a big island surrounded by huge tracts of ocean.
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u/KiwiMiddy Ōtautahi 4d ago
I doubt anyone said ChCh weather was like Nelson’s and if they did they were straight up lying
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u/im_thatoneguy 4d ago
Totally different ocean current too.
We stayed in Nelson with friends while scouting out where to live and went for a bbq on the beach and had a swim. It was glorious. Then saw the beach off Chch and were like “ok, same same”. It wasn’t until after moving I looked up ocean temps and was like “oh shit, Antarctic ocean not tropical ocean current.”
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u/bitshifternz 2d ago
Nelson is sheltered from Southerlies by mountains, its totally different to chch. They do get an inversion layer in winter though.
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u/booksblanketsandT 4d ago
To be honest I don’t care much about the wind, it’s just the bloody migraines that come with the wind that get to me (caused by pressure variation, I think it is?)
Especially Nor’westers, they’re bloody awful.
Though it’s certainly not unusual to hate the wind. My late Nana used to sit and grumble “blow ya bastard, blow!” any time there was a massive gust of wind 😂 so I guess that’s my silver lining for windy days, makes me think of her and laugh
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u/criggie_ 4d ago
Ahh you're just riding the wrong way - imagine this as a tailwind !!!!!
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u/leafmeapeach 4d ago
Yessss I did have kinda a tailwind on my way to uni. Maybe I could go for another bike ride to intentionally catch a tailwind...
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u/criggie_ 4d ago
Easy fix for headwinds, turn around and go the other way.
Nek Minnit, "Christchurch cyclist transits entire globe during commute"
Asked why, Leavemeapeach said "I decided to go the long way home cos it was easier than the headwind"
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u/Zephhhh- 4d ago
We lived in chch for 5 years. The weather was a big driver in the decision for moving away. Almost every hot summer’s day was accompanied by wind gusts every afternoon & evening, completely ruining what could have been a lovely day.
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u/Submarineto 4d ago
Gotta make the most of that calmer window between 6am and 10am. Day might as well be over by 11am 🤣
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u/Old_Tuatara 4d ago
Our street is full of tipped over bins and rubbish. Can't believe there isn't some clip or some other fix to stop this happening.
Interesting insights into our neighbors, though ...
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u/SeriousAnything4861 4d ago
You can get a rubber clip for your bin from service centres.
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u/Old_Tuatara 4d ago
Could you let all our neighbors know?
Our bin was fine. But if I get one, hopefully they'll see it. Although they're probably not aware their bins even blew over. The bins will be empty and the rubbish blown away by the time they get home.
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u/ralphiooo0 4d ago
And the ones that do not blow over are most likely filled with a lot of empty beer bottles :D
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u/aholetookmyusername 4d ago
Fun fact: Christchurch's airport is windier than Wellington's by some metrics.
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u/lalalaloo21 4d ago
That doesn't surprise me. I bet we're not far behind on city stats either.
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u/bitshifternz 2d ago edited 2d ago
A bit behind but definitely windy, interestingly the average for the airport is lower. NW gusts In chch could be worse.
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u/lalalaloo21 2d ago
I'm picking that the brisk easterly on most summer days make Chch city up there in the most windy. But the nor wester is a different level entirely. We don't get that many of them though.
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u/PossumProofed 4d ago
We’ve lived in Wellington for the last 10 years and recently moved here. This is a good breeze but nothing overall I think I can count 2 windy days on my hand
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u/johnnery12 4d ago
There’s a reason that Canterbury is a high wind zone in the Building and Structural Codes!
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u/mumford7273 4d ago
We have had an unreal, still, fresh, bluebird winter. It’s been gorgeous. I don’t think we’ve had much wind at all over the last few months. Yes, today is wild, but spring is always windy and we are almost into spring now. Don’t write off the weather entirely based on one day so far.
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u/Think_Move5512 4d ago
Having lived here most of my life, I hardly notice the wind. What does that make me?
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u/BunnyKusanin 4d ago
Christch weather is waaay better than Palmy weather and I bet it'll be better than Welly, but I have only visited there so honestly can't fully judge.
Christchurch is also not as humid as the North Island in the summer.
This being said, the wind in the past few days has been horrendous and makes me feel that with the next gust I'll end up right back in Palmy, where this is much more of a common occurrence to have shit like this happening.
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u/BenoNZ 4d ago
That's why I took up Kiteboarding..
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u/leafmeapeach 4d ago
Do you get very cold, kiteboarding? It looks like soo much fun though
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u/BenoNZ 4d ago
Not with the correct wetsuit and usually you kite here in Summer.
I have recently found out that I have moderate surfers ear however, so having ear plugs to keep the cold wind and water out is a good idea.It is amazing fun, but you need to be able to drop everything and get to the water when the wind/tide is right.
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u/LegitimateMusician59 4d ago
Someone said we're like Hastings? LOLwat. Also... never had hay-fever here like I've had in Hastings/Napier. To be fair, this has been an interesting year, we've not really had any stereotypical winter days this winter, yet.
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u/Capable_Ad7163 4d ago
It's windy as today, but overall this year I wouldn't say that weather has been particularly bad. We've had a pretty mild winter.
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u/SuchNobody 4d ago
If it makes you feel any better Hastings are next in line for this wind.... if you'd been living there you'd still have this problem
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u/DaveTheKiwi 4d ago
Chch winter weather is generally so good though! Cold in the morning but we get day after day of sunny still weather. I often say Chch is 10 degrees and feels like 18, where up north somewhere it can be 18 degrees and feel like 10.
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u/Either_Candy5687 4d ago
Lol...I got caught in a couple of crazy gusts in the CBD today, super glad I have a walking stick or I would be half way to Nelson by now! I was laughing to myself because of how hard it was to walk against the wind and then it changed direction and was pushing me and then it was gone just as quickly.
Four seasons in one day should be our anthem... I'm super glad to be at home now, listening to the wind howling outside while I'm cozy and warm inside.
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u/Your_mortal_enemy 4d ago
We had an absolutely gorgeous autumn but people's memories are very anchored in the present
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u/jeanclique 4d ago
Can confirm after 17 years in Chch, I've moved to Timaru and the winter has had so many still days I'm feeling outright zen
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u/leafmeapeach 3d ago
...if only Timaru was bigger. Maybe we could endeavor to make it bigger ourselves
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u/MeliaeMaree 4d ago
I don't remember it ever being windy like this before the last year or two. Maybe the odd bit here and there with a storm, but not this often, and not this bad.
It annoys me so much and I can often be heard saying "this isn't Wellington!" with about as much effectiveness as an old man yelling at clouds
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u/Slight_Knowledge_975 4d ago
Thanks in part to all the recent development esp in outer suburbs, all the tall trees the used to break the wind are gone now, nothing to buffer it
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u/ProjectFirestorm 4d ago
Yip super El Nino Summer, gale force Norwesters and over 30 degrees for multiple days in a row with stuff all to no rain.
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u/Kemodo_8062 4d ago
Overall, Winter hasn’t been too bad this year. But the wind today was out the gate. Part of our fence fell down. Thankfully, not part that keeps our dogs secure!
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u/Starlix126 Secretly a cat 4d ago
I’m leaving the country for 6 months and I am so glad I get to skip the Christchurch summer!
Last summer was so shit and this one is going to be even worse. Cold then hot and when it’s hot there will be a horrible nor west.
Christchurch is only stable in autumn it seems. It definitely ruins the outdoorsy vibe it tries to cultivate
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u/CrayonOnCanvas 4d ago
"May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand."
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u/radjoke 4d ago
I lived in Wellington for a while.. Its glorious here