Winter again. Again.

Today is the first day of Winter in the Southern Hemisphere (or this part of it, anyway). Winter is absolutely my least favourite season (I don’t like it all, but I don’t want to provoke it by say that…). On the bright side, three months to Spring?

The image above is what I posted on my personal Facebook, something similar to what I do every year. While I have that “tradition”, any season isn’t necessarily like it was in other years. This year, NIWA is predicting the temperatures will be warmer than average. We’ll still have cold snaps, of course, but, overall, the temperatures should be at least somewhat higher than usual. Apparently, this is happening because sea temperatures around New Zealand and 1 to 4 degrees Celsius higher than normal for this time of year. In fact, researchers have found that the oceans around New Zealand are warming faster than anywhere else. This, in turn, leads to more severe weather, rainfall in particular. [see also 1News’ weatherman Dan Corbett’s look at our coming winter weather, advising us “Get ready for a wild ride”. So, yay.

I suppose maybe it’ll give me stuff to blog about, so there’s that, I guess. Yeah, but I still prefer the other three seasons.