To truncate an otherwise long-winded account and somewhat tedious spiel - a tendency "Yours Truly" is quite renowned for - let's summarize the situation thusly: in her unflappable, suave,
nonchalant manner, "our" long-time and ever well-versed 'weathercaster' Karen - arguably unrivalled in both on-screen longevity and personal popularity alongside only Jim Hickey - 'announced' that the 'sunshine (or rather Scottish) capital (that is, Edinburgh) of the South' (i.e. Dunedin) - or not(!) - would apparently plummet to an overnight minimum of 6 degrees (Celsius), and then ascend to a rather respectable high of 14 degrees on Saturday. A pleasant prospect indeed - especially (as it shortly thereafter proved) when juxtaposed with the heavy chill that descended upon the city (and environs) that very (Saturday) evening, and then hung around a good one-and-a-half to two weeks thereafter.
Now Friday, June the 22nd'd been 'okay', let's say another (alongside Tuesday and Wednesday the 19th and 20th - coincidentally family birthdays) less cool, even somewhat mildish day, also hitting not just 9 degrees, but even breaking into double digits and reaching 10 eventually, and that even at our consistently cool residence set in the coldest, most shaded and southwesterly-inclined section of our street. Anyhow, just after Karen's weather preview, scurrying back out onto our back porch, it'd meanwhile climbed to 11-and-a-half degrees, and then, by around 8 p.m., it had warmed further, stabilizing around it seemed an eminently 'fair enough' 13 degrees. In other words we were - already - well on our way to 'tomorrow's target' (maximum) - and, what's more, with literally heaps of time still to go. And actually, since our place is consistently a couple degrees below the official TV1 & TV3 temperature site maximums, well, that's basically as good as that (predicted max) anyway. So 'good stuff' Dunedin: thus far so good anyway.
Now I've "never made no personal claims" to prophetic status - either in eternal, spiritual, 'other-worldly' matters or in much more temporal, everyday, this-worldly affairs. Yet nevertheless I had, as I often have done, already given my Mum my own 'gloss' upon the following day's weather forecast. This I did upon hearing "our" Karen run through the following 24-hour's local weather events with her - and that of her fellow weather presenters' - characteristic uncategorical assurance that it would transpire 'just as we had been told'. And indeed so it did - not. Or at least in the usual way presumed; and that by an urban kilometre.
Anyhow, with, let's say, a rather hefty four-and-three-quarters decades (of which around three-and-three-quarters had been spent in Dunedin, or 3 entire decades if we ignore life up to around 10 years of age) under my sleeve, and knowing full well that Dunedin weather is just a tad different from our fellow main centres; (in all sorts of ways, and no, not just in terms of essential ambient chill); I said - approximately - the following to my ever-attentive, long-suffering Mum - well-versed in, if not entirely worshipful of, my long-established local weather prowess. That our faithful, ever welcome nor-westers - almost invariably congenial in contradistinction to their notorious Canterbury counterparts - having already kicked in that evening, the mercury would rise before it eventually fell. Or in regular laymens' and womens' terms, those predicted, prophesied 6 degree minimum and 14 degree maximum temps would indeed be reached, if not actually exceeded, but not at all in the way people - whether partisan locals or armchair critics from elsewhere - might expect. No sirree - or ma'am. Rather, as I'd told Mum upon hearing the next 24-hour's forecast, it would doubtless reach 14 degrees - or thereabouts - overnight, or - at the latest - either in the wee hours of the following morning or reasonably shortly after sunrise, and then, with the arrival of the ever-dreaded south-westerly (mid-morning, midday or sometime no doubt during Saturday afternoon), plummet rather quickly and eventually drop to 6 degrees or so. And so it indeed once again transpired, give or take both an hour or two and two to four degrees. Well, I'll freely admit that upon this one occasion the warmth hung around much longer than usual, indeed until early-mid afternoon in fact. (C'mon now - no-one's perfect.)
In brief it transpired thus. Upon arising at 12.15 a.m. it was still a mildish 13 degrees, and then the next occasion, at 2.55 a.m. - or so - I felt I'd entered Paradise upon Earth: the wind was gusting away and the merc had reached a balmy 15 degrees! (Mind you this is barely beyond mid-winter's day and in 'the Deep South' to boot.) Incidentally, while sojourning in 'the Twin Cities' of my Mother's native Minnesota, U.S.A., during Christmastime 1994, the locals (and myself also) were amazed and quite pleasantly taken aback when the temperature reached 50 fahrenheit, or 10 degrees Celsius, upon Christmas Day. Probably close to an all-time record for America's mini-Scandinavia.
It was still 14-15 when I finally got up at 5.30 a.m. - eventually dropping back to 12.5 awhile later - but upon leaving the house for the morning at 9.30 it was back up to 14 degrees. Arriving home around 12.45 p.m. it had reached 15.5, though I imagine it could well have gotten to, and even surpassed, 16 at our place through the late morning, if not also over the following couple of hours, when I absentmindedly forgot to check the temperature - duh! (Perhaps not though, as Mum informed me that whenever, on the admittedly rare occasions, she'd checked it late morning it'd been 'only' 14-14.5 degrees.) As you can already surmise the sub-tropical conditions didn't, and indeed couldn't, last forever, and thus and so it proved. By 3.30-4.00 it'd tapered off to 13-13.5, and then the ever-so-stealthily approaching, gathering storm clouds finally unleashed their merciless fury around 4.30, in lashes of squally rain, and suddenly our mini-summer oasis was done and dusted, and the temperature, already down to 12-12.5, quickly dropped to 10 degrees, and by 5.30 to 8-8.5. By the way the tv weather moguls graced us with a reading of 18 degrees, close to if not at the top (of the day's NZ high) and certainly I believe way above Christchurch.
END of Part One
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