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.

As WeatherWatch.co.nz forecast back in early April the cyclone season this year would likely extend into May due to the warmer than normal air and sea temperatures in our part of the world.

Today Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed the formation of Tropical Cyclone Ann, which formed nearly two weeks after the official Cyclone Season finished (April 30). 

In our part of the world we have to monitor the weather in several different nations and some - including New Zealand - have time zones you may not expect.

An enormous anticyclone (stretching over 4000km wide - the size of Australia) is moving over Australia in the coming days and it's bringing a big cool down for them and will then likely affect New Zealand.

From a mathematics point of view we are now over 4 months past the longest day of the year, 6 weeks past the equinox (when nights became longer than the days) and in just 6 weeks time it will be the shortest day of the year. In saying that we currently have mild northerlies across NZ creating for warmer than average afternoons.