Manukau Weather Station
Last updated: 2026-07-16 08:40:01 (@manukauweather)
Currently
7.1°C
Partly cloudy
Feels like 6.3°C
Wind Gusts (kph)
Wind Direction (Compass)
Humidity Level
Precipitation
Extremes
00:40
06:30
00:10
27 Mar 2026, 17:00
3 Jul 2026, 08:10
12 Apr 2026, 16:10
Hourly Temperature Trend (Last 24h)
Barometric Pressure (mb)
Last Data Samples
| Time | Temp | Wind | Gust | Dir | Hum | Press | Precipitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08:40 | 7.1°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1027 | 0.00mm |
| 08:30 | 7.3°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1027 | 0.00mm |
| 08:20 | 7.1°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1027 | 0.00mm |
| 08:10 | 7.1°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1027 | 0.00mm |
| 08:00 | 7.4°C | 4.7 kph (2.5 kt) | 9 kph | NW | 100% | 1027 | 0.00mm |
| 07:50 | 7.4°C | 4.7 kph (2.5 kt) | 9 kph | NW | 100% | 1027 | 0.00mm |
| 07:40 | 7°C | 4.7 kph (2.5 kt) | 9 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 07:30 | 7°C | 4.7 kph (2.5 kt) | 9 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 07:20 | 7°C | 4.7 kph (2.5 kt) | 9 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 07:10 | 7°C | 4.7 kph (2.5 kt) | 9 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 07:00 | 7.1°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 06:50 | 7.2°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 06:40 | 7.2°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 06:30 | 7°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 06:20 | 7.3°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 06:10 | 7.1°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.2 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 06:00 | 7.1°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.1 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 05:50 | 7.1°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.1 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 05:40 | 8.3°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.1 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 05:30 | 8.2°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.1 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 05:20 | 8.2°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.1 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 05:10 | 8.1°C | 5.4 kph (2.9 kt) | 10.1 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 05:00 | 8.3°C | 5 kph (2.7 kt) | 9.5 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
| 04:50 | 8.1°C | 5 kph (2.7 kt) | 9.5 kph | NW | 100% | 1026 | 0.00mm |
Weather FAQs
Why is it often coldest just after sunrise rather than during the middle of the night?
This happens because of a process called radiational cooling. Throughout the night, the Earth's surface continuously loses heat by radiating it back out into space. Even when the sun first peeks over the horizon, its rays are hitting the ground at a very low angle and aren't strong enough to overcome this heat loss yet. The ground continues to lose more heat than it receives for about 15 to 30 minutes after sunrise, causing the temperature to drop to its lowest point right then. You can often see this in the hourly temperature trend on this page — the daily minimum usually lands just after dawn, not at 3am.
What is a "frost hollow" and why does it get so much colder there?
Cold air is denser and heavier than warm air. On clear, calm winter nights, the air near the ground cools down rapidly and begins to behave like water — it slowly trickles downhill and pools in low-lying areas like valleys, bowls, or dips in the landscape. These areas are called frost hollows, and they can easily be several degrees colder than the surrounding hillsides. This is why official temperature records from an airport or hilltop station can differ noticeably from what you experience in a gully just a few kilometres away.
What is the difference between frost and hoarfrost?
Ground/white frost forms when the temperature of a surface (like grass or a car windscreen) drops below freezing, causing water vapour in the air to transition directly into ice crystals on that surface — a process called deposition, skipping the liquid stage entirely. Hoarfrost occurs under very specific, humid conditions when moisture-laden freezing fog or air hits objects like tree branches, wires, or bushes. It creates dramatic, interlocking, feather-like ice structures that grow into the wind. Interestingly, frost can form even when the reported air temperature is a degree or two above zero, because air temperature is measured at about 1.5 m above the ground while grass and car roofs can be significantly colder.
Why does a clear winter night feel much colder than a cloudy winter night?
Clouds act like a blanket for the Earth. During the day, the ground absorbs heat from the sun. At night, that heat rises. If it's cloudy, the clouds trap that heat and radiate much of it back down, keeping the surface warmer. If the sky is perfectly clear, there is no "blanket", and the heat escapes straight out into space, leading to a much sharper drop in temperature. This is why the coldest, frostiest mornings almost always follow calm, cloudless nights under a high-pressure system.
What exactly is "wind chill" and how is it calculated?
Wind chill is a measure of how cold the air feels on human skin, rather than the actual air temperature. Your body naturally warms a thin layer of air right next to your skin. When the wind blows, it strips that warm layer away, accelerating heat loss from your body. Meteorological agencies use a formula combining the actual air temperature and the wind speed to calculate the wind chill index — the standard metric version is: WC = 13.12 + 0.6215T − 11.37V0.16 + 0.3965TV0.16, where T is the air temperature in °C and V is the wind speed in km/h. The "feels like" figure at the top of this page uses this kind of calculation.
Why does it sometimes snow when the air temperature is above freezing (e.g. 2°C or 3°C)?
Snow forms high up in the atmosphere where it is well below freezing. If the layer of above-freezing air near the ground is relatively shallow, or if the air is very dry, the snowflakes won't have enough time to completely melt before hitting the ground. In dry air, a tiny amount of the snowflake evaporates as it falls, which actually cools the snowflake down (evaporative cooling) and helps it survive the trip to the surface. This is why forecasters watch the dew point as closely as the temperature when snow is possible — the same dew point reading shown in the Currently panel above.
What is the difference between sleet, freezing rain, and snow?
It all comes down to the temperature profile of the atmosphere as the precipitation falls. Snow: the air is below freezing all the way from the clouds to the ground. Sleet (ice pellets): snow melts into rain as it passes through a warm layer of air aloft, but then refreezes into hard little pellets of ice as it passes through a deep layer of sub-freezing air near the ground. Freezing rain: snow melts completely in a deep warm layer and doesn't have time to refreeze as it falls — however, the ground and objects are below freezing, so the liquid rain freezes instantly on impact, coating everything in a sheet of glaze ice. Freezing rain is the most dangerous of the three, as even a few millimetres of glaze can bring down power lines and make roads impassable.
Why is winter air often so dry, causing chapped lips and dry skin?
Cold air inherently holds significantly less water vapour than warm air — air at 20°C can hold roughly four times as much moisture as air at 0°C. When that cold outdoor air leaks into our homes and is heated up by radiators or heat pumps, its relative humidity plummets even further. Because the warm indoor air is so thirsty for moisture, it rapidly evaporates moisture away from your skin, eyes, and throat. This is also why static electricity shocks are far more common in winter.
What causes a "winter temperature inversion"?
Normally, air temperature decreases as you go higher up in the atmosphere. However, during a winter inversion, the air near the ground becomes trapped beneath a layer of warmer air above it. This often happens in valleys during long winter nights when the ground cools down dramatically. The warm air acts like a lid, trapping cold air, moisture (leading to persistent fog), and woodsmoke or pollution close to the valley floor. Inversions are the main reason some towns experience poor winter air quality — the smoke simply has nowhere to go until the inversion breaks, usually when the sun heats the ground enough to stir the air back up.
Does a high-pressure system always mean good, sunny weather in winter?
Not necessarily. While summer high-pressure systems usually bring clear, sunny skies, winter highs can bring two very different types of weather. If the air mass is dry, it will bring beautifully crisp, sunny days and freezing, frosty nights. However, if moisture gets trapped under the high's sinking air (an inversion), it can create a thick, stubborn layer of low cloud or fog — often referred to by meteorologists as "anticyclonic gloom" — that can last for days without any sunshine. New Zealand winters see plenty of both: a big slow-moving high over the country can deliver a week of frosty blue-sky days in one region and a week of grey murk in another, all from the same system. Keep an eye on the barometric pressure chart above — readings over about 1025 mb usually mean a high is parked overhead.
If you want the raw data, the current.json file is updated every 10 minutes.