The Impacts of Climate Change on New Zealand

On Saturday, September 11, 1880, Wellington’s Evening Post reported that a terrible railway accident had occurred at 1 lam that morning in the Rimutaka Ranges 80 kilometres north of the town, with at least three people killed and numerous others injured. But this was no ordinary railway accident; the train was blown off the rails by a powerful gust of wind, causing the wooden carriages to cascade down and smash into the ravine 30m below. Was the severe north-westerly gale experienced that day normal for the area, a notoriously windy gully called “Siberia,” or was it something exceptional, or even some indication of a changing climate?