Whanganui weather: A warm and damp July

Spring seemed to come early during some sunny days in July. Photo file / Bevan Conley

If you threw the duvet off the bed last month and felt like spring was coming early you were responding to New Zealand's second warmest July on record.

You might have noticed Whanganui having some of the top temperatures on the TV weather - because Whanganui was one of the warmer places in the country.

New Zealand temperatures were an average of 0.5C and 1.2C above average, and Manawatū-Whanganui and the inland South Island were the most unusually warm places, Niwa said.

In Whanganui the temperature was 2.4C higher than average across July. In Ohakune it was 1.7C higher, and Waiouru was 1.8C higher than average.

On July 3 Whanganui recorded a top temperature of 19.9C, while Ohakune had 16.8C.

The only year with a warmer July was 1998, when there was a world heatwave.

There were some rainy periods during the month. On July 4 Waiouru got 61mm of rain over 24 hours, the second highest total for it since 1950. The Desert Road was closed overnight, by snow.

Between July 14 and 17 a complex low pressure system moved over New Zealand, bringing rain and thunderstorms to the wider region. Whanganui town got 35mm of rain over the four days.

The full month's rainfall recorded at Whanganui Airport was 96mm, MetService meteorologist Andrew James said. That's a little more than the 84mm July average.

As a result soil moisture across most of the region is average to slightly above average.

July's warmer weather was caused by warmer than average sea temperatures. Its dominant westerly winds were caused by higher than normal pressure to the east and lower than normal pressure in the Tasman Sea.

Those winds moved to the south for the stormy, cold weather that began on July 31.