It’s been a terrible week weather-wise for the second week of the school holidays, at least that’s what most parents were probably thinking as they tried to find things to entertain the kids indoors. The bad news is, the weekend isn’t looking much better – unless you live in northern New Zealand. Luckily over a third of New Zealand does!
An enormous high south of Fiji and to the east of New Zealand is not only stopping the gale force westerlies spreading up New Zealand (they were reaching a staggering 130km/h in Wellington Thursday night) but it’s also stopping a number of other fronts from making this weekend a wet weekend in Auckland. The forecast from Gisborne, Waikato, and Bay of Plentynorthwrds this Saturday and Sunday is fantastic – with plenty of sun and nice warm nor’westers keeping temperatures in the late teens – Gisborne might even reach into the lower 20’s. The only possibly downside is the strength of the nor’wester. Again, the further north you are, the lighter it will be…but coastal Aucklandmight be a little breezy, especially on Sunday.
But the further south you head, the worse the weather gets. A number of lows will be roaring across lower part of the New Zealand delivering front after front and of course the pressure gradiant between the lows and the big high in the north means more of those strong gusty winds – with Wellingtonlooking set to cop the worst of it, you guess it – more gale force winds.
Dunedinis also going to be windy with gale force winds arriving on Sunday while further south it’ll be cold and blustery. The South Island‘s west coast has rain right through until Monday with thunderstorms in the mix on Sunday night.
The only relatively ok place weather-wse south of the North Island’s Central Plateau will be Canterbury. It should be a pretty good day Saturday with gusty nor’westers, which of course means it’ll be warm. Sunday – even stronger winds but cloud thickening and there could even be a sprinkle or two.
A glimpse into next week for NZ shows more changeable spring weather but a mile more settled than this week was.
THIS WEEKEND – THE BASIC STATS!
Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, Gisborne – settled, mainly sunny, warm again.
New Plymouth, Taupo, Palmerston North – cloudy at times, a few showers, annoying winds
Napier – dry, but often cloudy and very windy – especially Sunday
Wellington, Nelson, Marlborough, Christchurch, Dunedin – very windy, gales on Sunday and wet in Wellington & Dunedin.
Invercargill – showery, windy, cold.
Greymouth – Wet, wet…and wet.
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