DATA SOURCE: National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)
[Technical report available at https://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/environmental-reporting/ministry-environment-atmosphere-and-climate-report-2020-updated]
Adapted by Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand to provide for environmental reporting transparency
Dataset used to develop the "Extreme wind indicator [available at https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/extreme-wind]
This indicator measures the strength of extreme wind and how often extreme wind events (measured as a gust that is extreme for that location) happen at 30 sites across New Zealand from 1972 to 2019, although not all sites start at 1972. We report windiness using the annual average of the daily maximum wind gust. We report wind strength using the annual maximum wind gust. We use the number of days per year with a maximum wind gust in the 99th percentile to report how often extreme wind events occur for a location (on average, the 99th percentile daily maximum wind gust will be exceeded on 3.6 days per year). We also present trends for all three of these measures.
More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf.
