Weather Watch: Auckland struck by humid spell

Photo / Phillip Duncan

Wasn't that condensation and humidity in Auckland absolutely amazing this morning? In all my years of watching warm and cold fronts move in I've never witnessed condensation coating all the windows of my house in a matter of seconds - and on the outside.

I got up around 8am, knowing that it was going to be a fairly busy day today as we tracked the heavy rain moving down. But when I walked through my house I was surprised how cold and dry it felt. Hardly the sort of weather you'd associate with a sub-tropical low. When I read the comments that had been posted at WeatherWatch.co.nz and on Twitter and Facebook people were talking about wanting to turn on heaters and how chilly it was. My home was cool, around 14 or 15 degrees and humidity wasn't extreme despite the rain.

Then I started to see something weird. Comments from people who lived relatively nearby talking about how suddenly humid it was getting - and that condensation was forming all over the outside of their homes.

I went outside - the air was cool, the humidity wasn't extreme. I put it down to people's individual perceptions.

A couple minutes later I was aware of something bright in the corner of my eye...as I turned to look at the window I noticed the glass was turning white - in fact, within seconds every window in my house was white and almost impossible to see through.

I opened the door - the same one I had stepped out from just minutes ago - and boom, it hit me. Like getting off a plane when you land in Auckland after being somewhere cold. It was tropical, extremely humid, and every surface was wet - the walls, the windows, the floor boards.

I checked the temperatures - and sure enough humidity had rocketed up to 100% and the temperature climbed 6 degrees in just 30 minutes.

Aucklanders would be pretty hard pressed to find many examples in the record books of the temperature climbing that quickly during the day. Dropping that fast, sure, when a cold front comes through. But not rising.

It was also bizarre seeing thick condensation on the outside of the windows. Normally in winter, when condensation becomes a part of life for many of us, the condensation is formed when the air is damp and the inside of the house is warm compared to the outside.

Today we saw a reverse of that - cold in the house and suddenly hot and humid outside. And why did it happen? Because a warm front passed over.

Strange...but quite cool!