Mean minimum temperature of the coldest month data layer used in the creation of Land Environments of New Zealand (LENZ) classification. The classification layers have been made publicly available by the Ministry for the Environment (see https://data.mfe.govt.nz/layers/?q=LENZ for to access these layers).
Mean minimum temperature of the coldest month is recorded in °C. The climate station data used in the development of this climate surface were derived from summaries of climate observations published by the New Zealand Meteorological Service, using data collected over the period from 1950-1980. Estimates of the mean minimum temperature in July, the coldest month of winter, were derived from a surface fitted to monthly estimates of mean daily temperatures. The resulting data layer was created by coupling a 100 m DEM with a thin-plate spline surface fitted to an irregular network of 346 meteorological stations. The resulting 100 metre layer was then interpolated to 25 metres using bilinear interpolation.
This layer has been multiplied by a factor of 10 (i.e. converted into an integer grid) to save space and make the grids more responsive. A value of 53 is actually 5.3 °C.
Additional details such as the climate station locations used in the creation of the layer and error maps are defined in the attached LENZ Technical Guide.
