Editorial: A new dawn, a new year - in which many unexpected things might happen

Many unexpected things can happen in a year. Photo / Michael Craig

A New Year. On any other morning, this would be just the beginning of another day. But this is a morning in which everything seems new, fresh and full of possibilities.

The new year, 2024, will defy predictions and bring its own unexpected events. To know this we have only to cast the mind back 12 months. Who could have predicted on January 1 last year that within weeks Jacinda Ardern would resign? Nobody outside of her family and a few close colleagues, certainly not commentators wise after the fact.

Who could have predicted that before the month was out Auckland would have had half its usual annual rainfall? Not weather forecasters. Not even as their charts showed an “atmospheric river” coming from the tropics towards the north of New Zealand.

When the river reached the city on the afternoon of January 27, the Friday of Auckland’s Anniversary Weekend, everyone was taken by surprise. It was like living under a waterfall for a few hours. Lawns turned to pools, paths to torrents. Low-lying roads and properties were soon flooded.

Worse was in store for the North Island’s east coast a week later when Cyclone Gabrielle swept down from the tropics and was stalled over the region for several days by high pressure to the southeast of New Zealand. Hawkes Bay rivers overflowed, flooding homes and covering crops in silt. Landslips and forestry “slash” blocked the East Cape’s only road.

If the old year will be remembered for its weather, the new year is haunted by the fact that the events of last January conformed closely to predictions of what would happen more frequently as the planet warms.

But climate change was not the only contributor to our wettest year on record. As our science reporter, Jamie Morton, explained on Thursday, the La Nina weather pattern causes those slow-moving highs that warm the sea, increase evaporation and block the passage of cyclones.

Lazy La Nina has now given way to restless El Nino, which means this year is likely to bring more of the windy, cloudy, rapidly changeable weather of the past few weeks. It could be a steamy summer followed by a stormy winter.

The year could be stormy in politics too, beginning as soon as Waitangi Day and coming to a head when Parliament receives a bill to rewrite the “principles” of the Treaty.

It is a debate likely to activate the smaller parties - Act and NZ First on one side and Te Pati Māori and Greens on the other - more than National or Labour. A poll since the election has found rising support for small parties on both sides. Our politics could become more polarised in 2024.

The world’s politics this year will be focused on one man above all. Donald Trump’s possible return to the presidency of the United States will alarm Western democracies and excite autocrats, especially Russia’s who can probably count on Trump abandoning Ukraine.

But the US election is not until November and should Trump win it will be a year from now before he can do his damage. Many unexpected things can happen in a year. May they happen for the best, may 2024 be for all our readers a Happy New Year.