The SKY’S THE LIMIT
Whatever else young Bob McDavitt understood about the weather, he knew the roof wasn’t the best place to be during the 1968 Wahine storm.
The violent southerly winds on the morning of Wednesday, April 10, were pummelling Wellington, the interisland ferry Wahine, and the McDavitt home in the Wellington suburb of Kaiwharawhara.
“Mum and a few of my siblings were home, and she’d put the fire on. Which was a silly idea because the chimney blew over. She said, ‘Can you hop up on the roof and make sure the fire’s not catching into the ceiling?’ I said, ‘Noooope.’”
The storm was the catalyst for the 16-year-old at St Patrick’s College to become a meteorologist.
New Zealand’s best-known weather forecaster for the America’s Cup and for Olympic Games yachting, and the MetService’s inaugural weather ambassador, McDavitt has always been a large, and larger-than-life, character, sought out as an after-dinner speaker and for A&P shows and the National Agricultural Fieldays.
McDavitt’s signature gingery-grey afro has declined over the years and turned white, as has his beard. But his raconteur personality has not waned.
“I’m the only meteorologist in the
