Weather at Moosey's Country Garden Weather Moosey's Country Garden has a climate that falls into USDA Zone 8, however the weather has a number of idiosyncrasies that provide the gardener with significant challenges. Regular frosts are experienced at night in the winter, however it would be very unusual for the temperature to remain below freezing all day.
Summer is hot and dry.
The actual rainfall in any one year is however subject to wide variation from month to month with possibly long periods without significant rainfall followed by a major rainfall event which may make up the yearly average. Canterbury, New Zealand is also quite a windy place compared to continental northern hemisphere climates. We are located at about 45 degrees south latitude and are a small island in the middle of what are called the 'roaring forties', a belt of strong westerly winds which circles the Southern Ocean between 40 and 50 degrees. As the air rises it cools and the water condenses and forms rain which buckets down on the west side of the mountains. The air, now squeezed dry and warmed by the condensing rain rushes down the eastern slopes of the mountains and heats up dramatically.