Kāpiti's temperature set to soar?

Another stunning Paraparaumu Beach sunset. Photo / Bernie Velasco

A second weather recording station is being installed in Kāpiti that should give temperature readings more representative of how local people feel.

Daily weather temperatures and rainfall readings are gathered at MetService's automatic weather station at Kapiti Coast Airport, Paraparaumu, but the area is subject to sea breezes that can have a cooling effect on temperatures.

But now a council owned automatic weather station that had been in Ōtaki, but out of action for a few years, is being refreshed and repositioned in the outside Waikanae Pool grounds.

The weather station, in a more populated area and further away from sea breezes, is expected to be operational at the end of the month.

Whichever temperature is higher, either at the MetService's weather station at the airport, or the council's one in the pool grounds, will be published publicly.

The decision to establish a weather station at the Waikanae Pool came about after Kāpiti district councillor Mike Cardiff questioned if the weather station at the airport was the best place for measuring the temperature for the district, given its close proximity to the sea.

Mike Cardiff.

In January 2015 he wrote a column in the Kāpiti News that questioned why official temperature recordings for the district were taken from the airport.

"In my view the location of temperature recording at the airport does not represent the true temperatures that we experience in our district.

"The general response to my article was positive agreeing that the current method of reporting temperature readings in Kāpiti was misleading.

"Waikanae and Ōtaki boast some of the highest temperatures in the district yet we weren't seeing them reflected in our daily temperature.

"Since then I have continued to investigate both the reason why the temperature had to be recorded at the airport and the possibility of another site within a more populated area."

MetService and Cr Cardiff looked at various areas before settling on the pool site.

"The Waikanae Pool is further inland and closer to district's centre which means we'll be able to get temperatures that better represent the warm climate we enjoy on the Kāpiti Coast."

"MetService will look at the temperatures recorded from both locations and the highest of the two will go to media each day.

"I'd like to thank the Metservice for agreeing to this small but significant decision."