LOCAL NEWS
KEN RING:
WEATHER BY THE MOON - AUCKLAND WEATHER DIARY, MARCH 2022 March may be wetter and cooler than normal, with average sunshine. Expect a month of two halves, with the first half wet and the second half fine. The remnants of a cyclonic system originating north of NZ may impact the North Island in the second week, possibly the wettest event for the year, bringing flooding. The barometer may average around 1014mbs, with lowest pressures in the first week and highest pressures in the third week. For fishers, unusually high tides are around 4th. The best fishing bite-times in the east are around dusk on 2nd-5th and 17th-19th. Bite-chances are also good around noon of 9th11th, and 24th-26th.
For gardeners, planting is best (waxing moon ascending) between 14th-17th, and pruning 1st-2nd and 27th-31st (waning moon descending). For preserving and longer shelflife, pick crops or flowers on neap tide days of 12th and 26th. Always allow 24-hour error for all forecasting. (KEN RING) For future weather for any date, and the 2022 NZ Weather Almanac, see www.predictweather.com.
For future weather for any date, and the 2022 NZ Weather Almanac, see www.predictweather.com.
Opinions expressed in Ponsonby News are not always the opinion of Alchemy Media Limited & Ponsonby News.
JOHN ELLIOTT:
HOW DOES AN 83 YEAR OLD AVOID OMICRON? As an 83 year old living in central Auckland I’m conscious of the growing closeness of Omicron. Eleven hundred new cases yesterday (16 February). How many will there be by the time this issue of Ponsonby News comes out? It may be milder than Delta, but it will hit the old the young and the immune compromised hardest, and I can’t avoid that group! I spoke to psychologist Kyle MacDonald, and asked him if this new variant, and its unknowns, was affecting wellbeing more or differently than Delta had. Kyle didn’t think much had changed mental healthwise. What he said was that it was a challenge for most of us to maintain flexibility. We tend to look for certainty when we’re anxious, and when we don’t know what is happening we try to create certainty. Kyle says we need to, “recalibrate our anxiety, based on the best science". MacDonald thinks most New Zealanders have done well, but they still, when facing Omicron, have to assess the risk factors
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they are taking. Some will be more risk tolerant than others. There has been a grinding weariness around lockdowns, says Kyle MacDonald, and like the AA slogan says, “we should keep our side of the street clean". In other words, do what we can to minimise disasters, including super spreading events. Lockdowns may have ended, but I detect a careful approach to gatherings in public by most people. There are the 'let-it-rip group', some of whom think 83 year olds are dispensible in the interests of the economy - that money is more important than people, might be too harsh, but you get the drift. I just hope our PM Jacinda sticks to her earlier statement that she will not sacrifice the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders on the altar of GDP. (JOHN ELLIOTT) PN
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