- Will the peak wind gust in Wellington be 93 km/h or below in August?<1¢
- Will the peak wind gust in Wellington be 94 to 103 km/h in August?1¢
- Will the peak wind gust in Wellington be 104 km/h or above in August?98¢
This market will resolve to the wind-gust range that contains the maximum wind gust, in km/h, recorded in any routine (METAR) or special (SPECI) observation from Wellington Airport (ICAO: NZWN) between August 1, 2026 12:00 AM ET and August 31, 2026 11:59 PM ET. Wellington, New Zealand is widely recognized as the world's windiest city, and its airport regularly records powerful gusts that make headlines and viral landing videos worldwide. The resolution source for this market is the gust value in the wind group of NZWN's raw METAR/SPECI observations, encoded in knots (for example, "34020G45KT" denotes a 45-knot gust), as archived by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet (IEM) for station NZWN in network NF__ASOS ("New Zealand ASOS"). Gust speed is converted from knots using 1 kt = 1.852 km/h, rounded half-up to the nearest whole number. Because gusts are reported in whole knots, no observed gust converts to a value on a bracket boundary, so every observation maps to exactly one range. The month's highest gust can be located via the IEM Data Calendar for NZWN: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/sites/hist.phtml?network=NF__ASOS&year=2026&month=8&mode=monthly&station=NZWN. Each calendar day displays that day's peak gust inline; clicking a day's date opens the daily Summary for NF__ASOS, where the Peak Gust column in the NZWN (Wellington) row shows the day's maximum. Ensure station NZWN is selected, as the NF__ASOS network includes other New Zealand stations. Note that the IEM calendar and summary pages display gusts in mph; resolution is based on the knot value in the underlying raw METAR, which IEM archives alongside each parsed observation and which can be used to independently verify any value. If any observations are missing or unavailable, this market will resolve to the range containing the highest gust reported during the resolution window. Should the IEM archive be unavailable or discontinued, this market will resolve based on the equivalent raw METAR/SPECI observations for NZWN from another credible archive or the original reporting authority.
Wellington, New Zealand, experiences extreme gusts due to its location in the Roaring Forties and funneling through Cook Strait, where topographic acceleration routinely produces northerly and southerly winds exceeding 100 km/h. The dominant market positioning for a peak August gust of 104 km/h or higher reflects both this established climatology—historical records show frequent events above 96 km/h at exposed sites like Mt Kaukau and the airport—and the recent confirmation from a strong Tasman Sea front on 23 August 2026 that delivered a verified 168 km/h gust. With August nearly complete and no credible data revisions expected, only an unprecedented measurement failure or redefinition of the recording station could alter the outcome. Traders’ near-certainty aligns with official MetService observations and long-term NIWA gust distributions for the month.