New Zealand Climate

In our seminar we’ve learned how greatly the country of New Zealand varies for example in its landscape. As it finds itself on the other side of the world — at least from my point of view as I am in Germany — I wondered about how the climate must be like. And with climate I don’t mean the fact that weather conditions in winter and especially on Christmas (to name a specific time of the year that is traditionally linked with snow and low temperatures) are upside down compared to Germany or Europe in general. What I want to find out is how landscape structures influence the climate and (maybe?) vice versa. To make it clearer to myself some details will be compared to German ones.

Meteorologists divide the country into individual areas and (apart from the Islands in the South) mainly differentiate between North and South NZ and looking more closely they also distinguish the four cardinal points. Generally, New Zealand provides a complex climate, varying from subtropical weather conditions in the North to cool temperature climates in the South and even alpine conditions in mountainous areas. One crucial reason for this sharp climate diversity are the mountain chains that extend the length of the whole country: They function as a barrier for winds from the west and are consequently dividing the country in two parts.
According to that the West Coast of South NZ is considered the wettest area of the entire country whereas the driest area is east to the mountains which is not more than 100 km away. Surprisingly (for me), variations between summer and winter are not that huge; the mean temperature in the south is about 10°C and in the north 16°C. My Christmas image is proven true as January and February are the warmest months of the year. Also New Zealand counts at least 2000 sunshine hours annually.
Of course not only the mountain chains cause climate variety but also the fact that New Zealand is (just like Australia) located in the Pacific Ocean with the coordinates ♁34° 23′ 47″ S, 173° 1′ 0″ O (coord. for North Cape) and thus on the southern hemisphere which is obviously another main reason for the climate differing from European climate.