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La Nina is peaking in November then it starts to fade out in early 2023 back to neutral. La Nina isn’t necessarily making dramatic changes to NZ’s weather this time around but the three month rainfall and temperature trends ahead do suggest it will be slightly milder than average nationwide whilst northern and north eastern parts of the North Island lean a little wetter – but not dramatically wetter.
November’s weather looks quite classic for this part of spring in NZ with a more westerly lean to begin with, bringing heavy rain back to the West Coast. But eastern areas may finally get a run of mostly dry and warmer weather for the next couple of weeks (as the 15 day rainfall maps suggest).
The outlook into summer doesn’t dramatically change either – most likely a continuation of the weather pattern NZ has been seeing for the past couple of months, but perhaps easing back a little more as we head through November (the winds usually ease a lot in the second half of the month as summer approaches).
There may be some parts of NZ starting to dry out in the weeks ahead – we touch on those areas (mostly in the South Island).
This update is made with RuralWeather.co.nz and our official business partnership with IBM – we sell the world’s most accurate weather data.
WHERE NOVEMBER’S HIGHS & LOWS WILL TRACK…
Week 1 – Kicks off with a very large area of low pressure which dominates the Tasman Sea and much of south eastern Australia. This storm changes shape in the NZ area for November’s first week, bringing a burst of windy nationwide westerlies (with gales) and heavy rain returns to the West Coast, allowing eastern areas to dry out more.Week 2 – Still sees a lot of low pressure in the map but the pattern of LOW + HIGH continues for New Zealand, meaning after the low pressure and winds of Week 1, Week 2 looks to kick off much more settled. It also gives the south eastern corner of Aussie a breather after weeks (months actually) of relentless storms there.Week 3 – Is beginning to look more like mid November with the stormy gale force westerlies of spring sliding further down southwards over the Southern Ocean and a short but very wide area of high pressure tracking over Australia, the Tasman Sea and NZ. This will encourage warmer winds in the NZ area if this map proves correct. No signs of any major tropical lows, despite La Nina peaking… as WeatherWatch.co.nz has said in our past few ClimateWatch updates, La Nina is measured at the Equator and NZ is closer to Antarctica, so La Nina doesn’t always dominate NZ’s weather like some news outlets and other forecasters may headline.
SOUTH ISLAND ALERT: This map also suggests some parts of the South Island will really be drying out by the middle of November – worth monitoring now.
LA NINA PEAKS THIS MONTH, THEN FADES…
La Nina officially peaks in November – but there’s not much difference between last month and this month with the entire La Nina event quite borderline this time around. Graphic by BoM.BoM’s (Bureau of Meteorology) “model of all models” shows La Nina peaks (only just) in November, eases in January and back to Neutral by Autumn 2023.This model of all global models (does not include NZ Government Agency NIWA as they do not contribute to open global data, for their own commercial reasons). This team effort of global modelling clearly shows not only does La Nina finally finish this coming summer (after 3 La Nina in a row), but it also implies a possible return to El Nino later in 2023. El Nino for NZ typically sees more windy west to south west winds which can make western areas cooler and cloudier and many places much drier (except the West Coast).
UPCOMING RAINFALL…
7 Day Departure from Normal. To drill down deeper use RuralWeather.co.nz for hyper-local rainfall totals over the coming 10 days.This map highlights LITTLE TO NO RAIN (in white boxes) and HEAVY RAIN (in black boxes).Same 15 day rain map as above, but focused on New Zealand only.IBM/WeatherWatch MONTHLY rainfall outlook for November suggests most places have normal rainfall but very slightly wetter than average in parts of the North Island’s east, and maybe Marlborough too. Fiordland may be much drier than usual – but not until after heavy rain falls in the first week of November.Same map as above, but shows eastern Australia too.Departure from Normal – Next THREE MONTHS ahead shows a similar outlook to November. The wetter and drier than usual differences in NZ aren’t actually too extreme despite the colour differences (orange to green), whereas parts of NSW and A.C.T may be 40 to 50mm wetter than average (blue shading).
SOIL MOISTURE…
Current Soil Moisture Map – Shows NZ looking about normal for mid-spring with pockets of dry forming in some areas, but still some pockets of wet. NIWA unfortunately delays data in these maps by 24 hours for their own commercial gain, so this public map for Oct 31 does NOT include the heavy rain that fell on Sunday Oct 30 in Bay of Plenty. That area isn’t as dry as this NIWA map suggests at the time we published this.
AIR TEMPERATURES…
DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL – TEMPERATURE TRENDS for NOV, DEC & JAN This map shows NZ leaning about 0.5C to 0.7C warmer than average overall, whilst inland parts of Australia lean over 1C cooler than average.
SEA TEMPERATURES…
Current sea surface temperatures – these free maps are made public thanks to the Moana ProjectAreas in red indicate Marine Heatwaves.
Our next big ClimateWatch Update (our final one for 2022) will be issued Thursday Dec 1st and our following one will be several weeks later in late January.
WeatherWatch.co.nz & RuralWeather.co.nz – official IBM business partners. We sell the world’s most accurate weather data and weather alerting solutions for business.
Greetings from Taiwan! Me and my partner are panning on a road trip visiting south island from Nov 18 to Dec 1. Judging from historical patterns and the current La nina weather condition in NZ. Should I arrange my visit to Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park earlier or later in our road trip? Thank you vm!
Hi Daniel, thanks for the question and glad you’re visiting us from Taiwan! To be honest Nov 18 to Dec 1 will have similar weather patterns so it will be the ‘luck of the draw’ if it’s sunnier/dry when your’e there. There could just as easily be a wet burst of weather mid to late Nov, or early Dec. For now, mid Nov doesn’t look too bad though… but this ClimateWatch update isn’t really a daily/weekly weather forecast, more of a trend of weather patterns. Hopefully you’ll get good weather – that part of NZ is quite dry usually.
All the best!
Philip Duncan
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Lorraine on 3/11/2022 2:45am
Good to see a detailed Climate Watch forecast from reliable sources unlike the NIWA ones – keep up the good work
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Daniel on 31/10/2022 1:31pm
Dear Team,
Greetings from Taiwan! Me and my partner are panning on a road trip visiting south island from Nov 18 to Dec 1. Judging from historical patterns and the current La nina weather condition in NZ. Should I arrange my visit to Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park earlier or later in our road trip? Thank you vm!
Cheers,
Daniel
Reply
WW Forecast Team on 31/10/2022 8:30pm
Hi Daniel, thanks for the question and glad you’re visiting us from Taiwan! To be honest Nov 18 to Dec 1 will have similar weather patterns so it will be the ‘luck of the draw’ if it’s sunnier/dry when your’e there. There could just as easily be a wet burst of weather mid to late Nov, or early Dec. For now, mid Nov doesn’t look too bad though… but this ClimateWatch update isn’t really a daily/weekly weather forecast, more of a trend of weather patterns. Hopefully you’ll get good weather – that part of NZ is quite dry usually.
All the best!
Philip Duncan
Reply
Daniel on 1/11/2022 12:36am
Thanks Philip! Much appreciate your reply.
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