diff --git a/include/netCDF4.pxi b/include/netCDF4.pxi
index 62b9be609..d1d398ee0 100644
--- a/include/netCDF4.pxi
+++ b/include/netCDF4.pxi
@@ -373,7 +373,7 @@ cdef extern from "mpi-compat.h":
 # taken from numpy.pxi in numpy 1.0rc2.
 cdef extern from "numpy/arrayobject.h":
     ctypedef int npy_intp 
-    ctypedef extern class numpy.ndarray [object PyArrayObject]:
+    ctypedef extern class numpy.ndarray [object PyArrayObject, check_size ignore]:
         pass
     npy_intp PyArray_SIZE(ndarray arr) nogil
     npy_intp PyArray_ISCONTIGUOUS(ndarray arr) nogil