This article is not an exercise in Wellington bashing but when we say it’s a cool place, we mean it in the literal sense of the word. The city’s southerly winds that feel like they’ve come straight from Antarctica are icy cold, while anyone who has landed at the city’s airport on a gusty day will tell you those winds pack a turbulent punch as well as low temperatures. It all combines to make New Zealand’s capital a chilly place at times, and all that wind is to blame.
Wellington is widely recognised as the windiest city in the world: an average day sees gusts of around 30 kilometres an hour, well above the national average. On 173 days of the year, New Zealand’s capital city records winds of more than 59 kilometres per hour, and 22 days see gusts above 74 kilometres an hour. Yes, Wellington is windy…but why?
Much of it has to do with the city’s location. Wellington lies in the gap of a long mountain chain that starts in the lower North Island and continues down the South Island. That chain is interrupted by Cook Strait, the passage of water that runs between the two islands. Cook Strait, therefore, acts as a wind tunnel; with Wellington being situated on the edge of the Strait, it bears the brunt of all that windy activity which intensifies as it enters the tunnel.
The city’s hilly nature merely adds to that windy feeling. When the wind swirls and moves around the hills, it becomes gusty and punchy and justifies the city’s second name: The Windy City. if those hills weren’t there, the wind would simply fly above the city and no one would be any the wiser. Well, they probably would but the impact of the wind would be vastly reduced.
As it stands, Wellington is a compact city with lots of great things to see and do, but the wind is a constant factor. Sometimes, it is extreme in its presence. Gusts of over 200 kilometres have been recorded on Wellington’s Mount Kaukau, and hurricane-force winds that hit Wellington harbour on April 10, 1968, caused the sinking of the Wahine, the ferry that used to sail between Lyttleton and Wellington. 51 people died on the day, with two succumbing to their injuries over the following days, making this New Zealand’s worst maritime disaster in modern times.
Let’s end on a brighter note. To introduce some balance into this post, we should let you know that Wellington was actually named the sunniest city in New Zealand in 1991. This was a great surprise to the rest of the country, who often say that an average summer in Wellington lasts for two days, and a brilliant summer lasts for three. This probably meant that, for a change, the people who install heat pumps in Wellington were doing so for the device’s cooling properties. Although it’s fair to assume that even on those sunny days, there was still a fair breeze blowing.