2014 weather one extreme to the other

THE BIG DRY: Northland's thirsty farms, like this one at Pouto, sweated through the third drought in four years. PHOTO/JOHN STONE

Topsy-turvy, flip-flopping and back-to-front are among phrases even well-weathered meteorologists are using to describe Northland's weather in 2014.

It was a year of drought, floods, gales and lightning strikes.

While 2015 has started with the region basking under a dome of blue sky, 2014 got off and ended on a different tack.

"Talking temperatures, 2014 will be remembered for being somewhat back-to-front," said MetService meteorologist John Law. With a cooler-than-usual start and finish to the year for much of the country, the middle months - especially in the Indian summer from April to June - saw high temperature records broken.

West coast Northland's thirsty farms sweated through the third drought in four years, with predictions in March that when the drought finally broke, the weather would turn "evil". Elsewhere, the region experienced a warm, wet and windy lead-up to winter - and felt the lash in the tail of two tropical cyclones, Lusi in March and Ita in April.

Lusi's storm surge sent waves over State Highway 11 at Paihia into shops and restaurants, and threatened to top 100mm of rainfall in many parts of Northland. Power lines and trees toppled.

The Northern Advocate reported an unofficial temperature reading of 30C in Whangarei central on April 9 when the official temperature taken Whangarei Airport was 24.8C. Only days later, almost 5000 Far North households lost power as ex-cyclone Ita cut a swath across the district, with winds reaching 120km/h.

Nationally, June was the warmest on record but flooding and slips accompanied a week-long drenching in Northland after June 11, when a severe weather warning came with predictions of 100-150mm of rain over 36 hours.

In July, a storm played havoc and wiped out a large chunk of State Highway 1 near Towai.

September was punctuated by thunderstorms.

Cooler temperatures continued into December, but were rapidly replaced by warmer northerlies over the country, Mr Law said. The year was notable for large swings between very dry periods and extremely wet ones.

"Overall, 2014 ended up looking about average with respect to temperature for many parts of the country but the year was actually a rollercoaster of temperatures swinging from unusually cold to extremely warm, and back again."