Australia

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.

Sydney's prolonged run of pleasant weather during the last couple of weeks was also the city’s warmest fortnight this late in the season on record, based on consecutive maximum temperatures.

Sydney is forecast to register its 14th consecutive day in the mid-to-high twenties on Friday, with the city forecast to reach a top of 28 degrees.

A strong cold front is causing damaging winds, powerful surf, showers and snow in parts of southern Australia today.

The front, which is crossing Australia's southeastern states on Friday, is ushering in a large pool of cold air from the Southern Ocean.

Some much needed rainfall is on the way for far northwestern parts of New South Wales and southwest Queensland.

We have a typical Autumnal week this week which sees a variety of weather with warmer conditions moving in across the next couple of days for many places before a cold front on Wednesday and Thursday.

Tropical Cyclone Wallace has formed off the coast from Western Australia and while it does threaten the same area hit by Cyclone Veronica a few weeks ago the latest data is looking more positive for the Pilbara.

The latest guidance WeatherWatch.co.nz trusts shows the storm growing out at sea and reaching severe category 3 status over the next few days.

Melbourne is having its driest start to a year on record, with less than one third of the city's average rain falling during the last three months.

At 9am on Friday April 5th, Melbourne had only received 42.0mm of rain since the beginning of 2019. This is the city's lowest amount of rain to this point in the year on record, with data available back to the 1850's.

The weekend and even the start of next week looks a little repetitive around NZ with a large block of high pressure crossing over parts of the South Island while windier E to SE winds affect the North Island bringing cloud and showers in to the east and pushing inland to some degree.