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Auckland, upper North Island skies turn orange & gloomy as smoke from Australia arrives

Updated 8:05pm — Another unprecedented plume of smoke from Australia is crossing New Zealand, this time Auckland and the upper half of the North Island, where about half of NZ’s population lives.

Around 2pm on Sunday the skies, which were already fairly overcast, turned a dramatic orange and darkened significantly. The gloomy weather is likely to continue for the rest of Sunday with this next main plume moving through and thickening over Sunday afternoon.

By 7pm the thickest smoke had shifted north of Auckland to lie over Northland and should continue to thin out overnight.

There is a windy Southern Ocean change arriving today in the South Island and Monday and Tuesday nationwide which should clear the air over New Zealand. However smoke in the skies is only likely to thicken up over the next few hours.

From what WeatherWatch.co.nz can tell smoke this thick has never crossed New Zealand from Australia in recorded history.


 

2:15pm Satellite Image (Himawari)

2:15pm photo of the skies over Auckland

– WeatherWatch.co.nz

Comments

TomWIlson on 5/01/2020 3:24am

If you are going to use nullschool you should have used the Particulates overlay, shows the fires and smoke tracks https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/01/05/0200Z/particulates/surface/level/overlay=pm1/orthographic=-208.08,-30.93,1177/loc=149.221,-37.176

WW Forecast Team on 5/01/2020 3:26am

Hi Tom, great idea. Will keep in mind for the next time. Thanks for the suggested link, quite interesting to see.

Cheers
WW

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