Meteorological Society of New Zealand Newsletter #143 Summer 2015/2016- Page 1 ISSN 0111-1736 Meteorological Society Of New Zealand (Inc.) NEWSLETTER 143 Summer 2015/2016 Meteorological Society of New Zealand Newsletter #143 Summer 2015/2016- Page 2 Meteorological Society Of New Zealand (Inc.) NEWSLETTER 143 SUMMER 2015/2016 PO Box 6523, Marion Square, Wellington 6141, New Zealand Please forward contributions to Bob McDavitt, [email protected] CONTENTS Page Presidential foreword 3 Conference 2015 4 AGM Minutes and reports 5-11 Spring: NIWA review 12-13 Notable events 13-20 Christchurch, Ben Tichborne 20 Pick of the clips 21-51 Your Committee President Daniel Kingston Immediate Past President Sam Dean Secretary Katrina Richards Treasurer Andrew Tait Circulation Manager Sylvia Nichol Auckland VP Nava Fedaeff Hamilton VP Tim Gunn Wellington VP James Renwick Christchurch VP Adrian MacDonald Dunedin VP Daniel Kingston Journal Editor Jennifer Salmond Newsletter Editor Bob McDavitt Website Liaison Stefanie Kremser General Committee Mike Revell Michael Martens Charles Pearson Views and endorsements expressed in this newsletter are those of the contributors and advertisers, and not necessarily those of the Meteorological Society of New Zealand. The mention of specific companies or products does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by the Society. Meteorological Society of New Zealand Newsletter #143 Summer 2015/2016- Page 3 WELCOME TO 2016 Kia ora koutou I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year – I hope 2016 is successful and enjoyable for you all. From a meteorological and climatological perspective there is cer- tainly plenty of interest. The substantial El Niño event currently un- derway is shaping up to be the strongest since the 1998 event. As well as in1luencing conditions across the 2aci1ic region, the effects of El i-o have been felt further a1ield, such as the record high temper, atures and rainfall e4perienced in 5ecember in the 6K 7where I have been staying for the last few months8. Furthermore, 2015 is likely to be warmest year in the instrumental record, again partly linked to the current El i-o event. 0lthough hardly needed, this puts even greater focus on the importance of the outcomes 7and further work re:uired8 of the recent 2aris climate summit. Closer to home, the ational Science Challenges are getting under, way, with the focus of the <5eep South’ challenge on our ability to an, ticipate, respond to, and adapt to a changing climate of particular relevance to many in the society. 0ll in all, there is lots to be interest, ed in and e4cited about> Best wishes, 5aniel. Meteorological Society of New Zealand Newsletter #143 Summer 2015/2016- Page 4 CONFERENCE 2015 (Raglan) As uploaded to our Facebook site at www.facebook.com/nzmetsoc Thanks to our secretary Katrina Richards. Presentations are now available at http://www.metsoc.org.nz/conference AGM Minutes (Draft 4 Dec 2015) 23 November 2015, Raglan. Meeting began at 5:50pm, chaired by James Lunny in the absence of Daniel Kingston (President). Minutes taken by Katrina Richards (Secretary). 1. Attendance Ben Liley, Elizabeth Somervell, Greg Bodeker, Gregor Macara, James Lunny, James Renwick, Katrina Richards, Michael Martens, Mike Harvey, Mike Revell, Richard Gorman, Richard Turner, Roger Davies, Sally Gray, Stephen Stuart, Tony Bromley, Trevor Carey-Smith. 2. Apologies Andrew Sturman, Andrew Tait, Bob McDavitt, Brian Giles, Cliff Revell, Daniel Kingston, How- ard Diamond, Jennifer Salmond, John Lumsden, Matthew Ruglys, Neil Gordon, Sam Dean, Shane Bilish, Stefanie Kremser, Sylvia Nicol, Tim Gunn, Tom Adams. 3. Con1irmation of minutes of previous 0DM. There is one minor error to correctHI2013J at start of 2resident’s Report should read I201EJ 7Katrina Richards8. o further changes were re:uested from the 1loor. Motion that IThe minutes of the previous AGM, held on the 19 November 2014 be accepted as a true and cor- rect record J proposed by Sally DrayASeconded by Games Renwick " carried. E. Matters 0rising o discussion was undertaken at this point because all Matters 0rising were to be covered in the 2resident and Financial Reports. 5. 2resident’s report 2resident’s Report to the 2015 0DM 7By 5aniel Kingston, read by Games Lunny8 Firstly I would like to thank everyone who has turned up to the 0DM. I feel a little embar, rassed at not being able to attend my 1irst 0DM as 2resident " but I am currently on a 6,month sabbatical in Europe, making attendance a little dif1icult> So, thanks to everyone for putting up with my absence, and in particular to Games Lunny for chairing this 0DM in my place. In fact, I would like to start by e4pressing my gratitude to the whole committee for 2015 for all of their efforts " thanks to them my role has been much easier. Summary of activities for 2015 The committee met E times this year. Membership umbers have been relatively stable, and we continue to bene1it from the new MetService memberships. Website There have been good and not so good matters related to the website. E4isting Weather and Climate volumes on the website have been re,loaded to conform with various formatting is, sues for search engines. We now have volumes 1,1. and 28,3E on the web, with hopefully more to follow. 0ndrew Tait in particular has been instrumental in getting the volumes online this year. We have continued using the website for posting news and updates 7particular thanks to Bob Mc5avitt here8. 6nfortunately, the website email facility got hacked earlier in the year, so this feature had to be disabled. This has impacted general communication from the committee to the Society, in particular the newsletter K weekly updates circulated by Bob 7currently done through Mail, Chimp instead8, and advertisement of regional presentations of interest by the Lice 2resi, dents. We have made a start on resolving this issue, but have been slowed down by the lack of a speci1ic website of1icer on the committee. In liaison with Eddie Wealthall 7the web designerA Meteorological Society of New Zealand Newsletter #143 Summer 2015/2016- Page 6 technician responsible for the update of the website a few years ago8 some solutions have been proposed, but not yet acted upon " a task for the website of1icer in 2016. Gournal Weather and Climate is now mostly visible on Google Scholar – thanks to Andrew and others for formatting and uploading the articles to meet these standards. Requests have been put in to Web of Science and Scopus to have the journal recognized on their data bases. These re- quests are still active (these data bases take some time to assess the quality of the material in the journal). Following the reduction in costs by reducing the number of copies printed and distributing journal electronically, we have also identi1ied a new printing company to produce the remain, ing hard,copies that we create. This is e4pected to make further substantial savings " Lolume 35 will be the 1irst %ournal to come from the new printers. Lolume 35 of Weather and Climate is not yet out. There have been some dif1iculties this year in getting enough manuscripts to constitute a volume. 0n additional call for papers was sent out in September, with some success. We received a number of responses and hope to have enough papers ready to publish Lolume 35 before 2015 is out, although the timing is tight. The %ournal continues to publish interesting papers so hopefully this year is a one,off. Howev, er it is a matter for ongoing discussion how to maintain interest in the %ournal. 0 successful outcome in terms of inclusion in Web of Science and Scopus should help in this respect. ewsletter Thanks once again to Bob Mc5avitt, who continues to do a lot of hard work in producing the Metsoc newsletters. Regional meetings The Lice,2residents have been hampered somewhat by the aforementioned website issues, with fewer presentations advertised to the regions this year. By my count, 17 seminars have been advertised 7. for 5unedin, 8 for Wellington8. 0lthough there are some good reasons for the drop,off from 201E, I hope the L2s can be a bit more active ne4t year. Conferences The ovember 201E conference was held in Wellington, and was very successful with possibly a record number of attendees. The conference appro4imately broke,even 1inancially, follow, ing student grants and priBes. 0lthough sadly I am not here to en%oy it, on paper the conference this year sounds great " an interesting range of speakers in an interesting location. 0lthough smaller, the number of dele, gates is good for a non,main centre location. 0gain, we should be close to breaking,even for this year’s conference. The organisers have put a huge amount of effort in to setting up and running the conference. Mike Revell, Sam 5ean, 0ndrew Tait and Games Lunny have all con, tributed, but the lion’s share of the work has been done by Michael Martens 7advertisements, abstracts, programme8 and Tim Dunn 7all local logistics and organiBation8 " both deserve an enormous thankyou from me and the society. 0s indicated earlier in the year, the proposed %oint conference with the 0ustralian Meteorolo, gy and Oceanographic Society and the 0 N Climate Forum for February 2016 fell through, ow, ing to a couple of misunderstandings beyond our control. 0s a result this %oint conference will now take place in 2017, with dates provisionally booked for 7,10 th February. The likely venue will be the 0ustralian ational 6niversity 70 68 in Canberra. This booking will be 1inaliBed by early 2016. The 0 N Climate Forum is e4pected to take place on the 1inal day of the confer, ence.