Australia

A prolonged period of dry and warm weather is taking a toll on Australia's water balance, with large swaths of agricultural land in drought and urban dam levels dropping around the country.

High temperatures are coming for India, more heavy rain for Japan and a huge high pressure system for Australia and NZ means a lot of dry weather in the week ahead.

Here's a quick glance at the weather stories make the news this week around Asia and the Pacific.

A truly massive belt of high pressure will this week influence New Zealand's weather starting today and not leaving until next Tuesday (8 days from now). It is by far the largest high pressure system in our part of the world so far this year.

A huge high from Australia is about to affect our weather until early next week but it’s not all plain sailing with some showers in the forecast and a few subtle wind direction changes.

A southerly flow over New Zealand today is surprisingly mild for this time of year. It's not often NZ has a warmer than average day in late May with a south to south west wind flow. So why is it warmer than it should be? You can blame Australia.

Australia is 4000kms wide from west to east, the high coming in next week is more than twice that width for a time around Tuesday and Wednesday before consolidating into one large high that may eventually cross New Zealand next weekend.

Most of us know the centre of high pressure is often calm and settled but the outer edges can be stormy and today that is highlighted well with a tropical cyclone on the northern fringes and an active Autumn cold front on the southern edge of high pressure.

Cyclone Ann is going to make landfall in northern Queensland on Wednesday as a Category 1 tropical cyclone, or very near that strength. It means Ann is more of a sea and rain event than a wind event - although winds may be strong enough to cause some lower end damage to trees and buildings.

Tropical Cyclone Ann is located over the Coral Sea and continues to churn westwards directly towards the northern Queensland coastline with landfall expected on Wednesday.

WeatherWatch.co.nz says Ann remains a Category 1 cyclone with low end damaging winds, heavy rain and dangerous seas.

We have an out of season tropical cyclone in the Coral Sea called Ann which formed over the weekend. The tropical storm poses no threat to New Zealand but is expected to track westwards into northern Queensland as a weakened tropical low later this week.