It’s not locked in yet, but a tropical storm may end up drifting southwards towards NZ about one week from now, following a subtropical low that is tonight brushing the north-east corner of the North Island. March is the peak of the tropical cyclone season so seeing tropical lows/storms showing up now is quite normal – but at the same time we are also seeing our most powerful high pressure zones so far this year in southern parts of the country, and that’s going to play a role in if next week’s tropical low reaches us as a storm – or falls apart before it gets here. We show you the latest maps.

Generally speaking rainfall is below normal in almost every part of New Zealand over the next 7 days, so that’s why there is interest in this next tropical low as it may bring rain relief into some dry regions. We probably won’t know until the weekend or even Monday of next week how this may pan out, especially due to that strong anticyclone in southern NZ next week.