Where are the hot Hawke’s Bay summer holidays?

A traditional hot Hawke's Bay summer day being enjoyed at the beach, back when the temperature was over 30C. Photo / NZME

The 2022-2023 school holidays will almost certainly be the first in living memory the temperature in Hawke’s Bay hasn’t exceeded 30C.

The highest temperature recorded by MetService in Napier and Hastings during the holidays was 28.3C in Hastings on December 30 - the hottest this summer was 29.7C in Hastings on November 2, and MetService is currently not forecasting any temperatures over 25C in Hawke’s Bay before most school pupils head back to the classroom next Monday.

It’s almost a year since it was last over 30C – hitting 33.3C last February 4, which was heralded by the first “heat alert” issued in a pilot run by MetService, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) and Climate Change Research Institute (CCRI) monitoring 22 of the warmer sites throughout the country, including Napier.

Temperatures in the 2020-2021 summer passed 30C at least twice, and in the previous summer, on February 2, 2020, the temperature in Napier hit 37.4C, the hottest recorded in the area in 45 years.

The previous summer, the temperature hit 30C in early November 2019, and Hawke’s Bay Today has highlighted temperatures over 30C in every summer for at least 15 years, several times passing 33C.

Nationwide, the hottest temperature reported by climate agency Niwa last month was 33.4C at Alexandra on December 28, and it was rated the 10th-warmest December on average throughout the country.

On Sunday, Wairoa’s peak of 26.5C was the fifth-hottest nationwide, while today the temperature had reached the forecast of 22C by 1pm, when it was 20.6C in Napier.

In the meantime, as one example, Napier has had 155 millimetres of rain in January, two-and-a-half times the January average.

One who yearns for a return to the traditional hot, sunny, Hawke’s Bay summer day is softball stalwart Craig Waterhouse, who says the 2022-2023 summer is like nothing he’s experienced in 45 years of relying on the climate to make sure the various games and tournaments tick over.

He reckons some did complain “it was too hot”, but he remembers fondly the barbecues into the evening – “to a reasonable hour”, regularly, every summer.

“You dine outside all the time,” he said.

This year, some softball teams have trained “more inside than outside”, he said, looking tentatively at the forecast for a North Island Under-15 tournament in Hastings over the next two days (Tuesday - Wednesday). While there’s no rain on the radar, he noted the psyche in the province regarding weather is fickle.

“The only ones saying it’ll rain are a couple of mates,” he said.

Hawke’s Bay Cricket CEO Craig Findlay, with 40 years of summer cricket in Hawke’s Bay behind him, finishes running the annual summer cricket camps on Tuesday.

“Usually they leave saying, ‘Gee, that was hot’,” he said. “Usually it’s a dustbowl, scorched brown, and the ground staff want people to get off afterwards so they can water the pitches. This time, it’s the reverse.”