Wild Land

I suspect that the Norse god of thunder has taken note of that advertising campaign to spend some time in Absolutely Positively Wellington. He doesn’t seem to be spending a lot of time with his wife Sif or his mistress Jarnsaxa, though, as he’s been busy hooning about the sky in his chariot tossing his hammer about over the weekend.

Thor was out and about on Saturday night and again Sunday morning and then seems to have parked his chariot for a while. He was back again last night at 10:10 p.m. with a noisy display (60-odd lightning strikes recorded at Lower Hutt) before popping off for a mead or two.

Perhaps he had one too many as he put in a fine show this morning at 4:45 riding his chariot from Wellington over Tawa and to the north. The thunderstorm lasted about half an hour and it was definitely worth watching its progress over a cuppa. About 4 mm of rain fell during a five-minute downpour. He was also very active over Lower Hutt where he waved his famous hammer to cause 65-odd lightning strikes to be recorded between 4 a.m. and 9 a.m.

We’ve now had 47 mm of rain in Tawa so far this April, compared with 6 mm at the same time last year. April’s rain total last year was 35 mm, most of which fell overnight on the 23rd/24th when Thor was here for his regular Anzac Weekend stay. Last year he was certainly in a party mood, disrupting electricity supplies, causing gutters to overflow, and throwing hail about.

I’d better ring around the hotels to see whether Thor’s booked in for Anzac Weekend this year. Perhaps he’s brought his visit forward by a fortnight.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 10th, 2006 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Weather - Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.