Another eventful week in weather here in New Zealand, with some stormy, cold conditions dominating our winter once again after last week – while internationally we’ve seen more crazy phenomena as 2016 strengthens its claim to being one of the weirdest climate and weather years ever!

Let’s start in international news, where although it’s been freezing cold in parts of New Zealand, above us in the Northern Hemisphere – particularly the Asian continent – they’ve been dealing with the opposite problem.
In a bid to beat the summer heat, South Koreans have taken part in a huge water gun fight in the streets of Seoul.
The fight is part of the fourth Sinchon Water Gun Festival, which kicked off on July 9, where water fights have recently become popular summer festivities in Korea, according to local media.

We hope you’re enjoying 2016 — it’s set to be just a tick longer than a normal year.
And by ‘tick’, we mean that literally.
A single ‘leap second’ will be added to the world’s clocks at 23:59:59 p.m. UTC on December 31, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Check out the full story, here.

Moving a little closer to home, Australia and New Zealand have both seen some distinctly ‘Antarctic’ weather this week – the result of a surge of air coming up from Antarctica – and causing icy and snowy conditions around Australasia.
The bitter cold that brought winds, hail and snow to Victoria is set to continue for the state, but destructive winds have dissipated, after strong winds and thunderstorms his coastal areas of Victoria this week.
The State Emergency Service received more than 1000 calls during the middle of the week, following winds up to 100km/h that uprooted trees and caused widespread damage to property and roads.

Snow is falling near Melbourne as the big chill hits the state https://t.co/sP5qVc2U8N pic.twitter.com/A851uWfdad

— Herald Sun (@theheraldsun) July 12, 2016

South Australia was also in the firing line, with wild weather lashing the state, causing nearly 2,000 emergency service callouts between Saturday and Thursday.
Damaging winds brought an unprecedented number of trees down across the Mount Lofty Ranges, Fleurieu Peninsula and metropolitan Adelaide.

Why is it so cold in #Adelaide? This is where our air has come from! #SAweather #canyousmellpenguins courtesy @NOAA pic.twitter.com/46lByD5BFP

— BOM South Australia (@BOM_SA) July 11, 2016

And finally in Australia, our neighbours in Tasmania have seen some fairly grim conditions towards the end of the week after very heavy rainfall and snow caused problems around the state.
The Huon River in southern Tasmania has risen higher than predicted, posing the greatest flood risk in 20 years.

Huonville facing worst flooding event in 20 years as Huon River rises https://t.co/oG1h0Khc6n #TAS pic.twitter.com/bqmtu27CWX

— ABC Emergency (@ABCemergency) July 14, 2016

Back on home soil it hasn’t been too much better this week, as several regions saw some bitterly cold conditions through the week – inland parts of the South Island especially, with temperatures at minus three degrees at lunchtime on Monday.

– Monday 1pm Graphic: Wunderground

While we’re in the middle of winter, and snow, southerlies, hail and a drop in temperatures all happened this week, we’ve had a bit of push back from people saying that where they are it feels more like spring.
To be fair, we’re both right – we do have wintry weather coming in and temperatures are falling, but the big strong westerlies (see our “What are the Roaring Forties?” story) blowing across many parts of New Zealand today are certainly more spring-like, especially when the origin of this airflow comes from Australia’s interior – hardly Antarctic.

In fact the Antarctic portion of air flow was ‘cut off’ by the strong westerly stream of air earlier in the week, which was flooding across the Southern Ocean, Tasmania and New Zealand.

And finally, to get a sense of what the weather’s still doing across the rest of your weekend, as well as a look into early next week, check out the full updated forecast with Philip Duncan, here.
Don’t forget to check out this week’s poll, about the plants and trees at your place, here – and tell us where you’re from in our comments section below the story!

– WeatherWatch.co.nz