As we ring out the old and ring in the new, the question is always the same: where did that year go?
It seems no time since we were looking forward to 2017 — until we remember everything that has happened. Nobody at the dawn of the year expected a change of government, not even the Labour Party. Nobody dared predict Team NZ would regain the America's Cup. Nobody imagined a Lions team would draw the series with the All Blacks.
Certainly, nobody predicted the weather. It turned from one of the stormiest years on record to perhaps the earliest summer New Zealanders can remember. Who ever heard of a heatwave in October, lasting through November, driven by an unusually warm La Nina current in the Tasman Sea?
Though it has cooled a little in the last two weeks, and rain belts have passed over a grateful country, usually at night, the warm sea has made the weather more settled than we have come to expect at this time of year.
January is normally the true start of our summer when the ocean has warmed sufficiently and it stays swimmably warm on northern coasts through February, March and into April. So higher ocean temperatures this summer should mean this weather lasts even longer than usual.
