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As we do each month ClimateWatch looks at the main climate drivers influencing NZ and Australia’s weather patterns. June was especially wet (and mild for many) in NZ with some locations receiving two or three times their usual rainfall, which means as we hit the halfway mark of 2023 a number of regions have now had more than one year’s worth of rain.
This incredible wet first half to the year has many concerned about the second half – but it looks as though ‘Mother Nature’ is going to try to do a balancing act with an increase in westerlies hopefully helping to dry out saturated, muddy, eastern areas.
But western areas (like Waikato) may still have a few more weeks of wet weather before a drier trends starts to emerge. It may not be wetter than average in Waikato, but right now – like Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne – even 5mm seems like a lot.
Following the chaos of June’s weather pattern, July is shaping up to have more order and more westerly driven weather with low pressure mostly south of NZ and high pressure mostly to our north and west.
Latest on El Niño…
At the time we recorded our Video (July 3) El Niño was still not officially announced, although it’s strongly building in the equatorial Pacific.
There currently remains a disconnect between what is happening at sea and connecting that to the atmosphere. However, long range data does suggest NZ is heading into a drier more westerly driven weather pattern over the months ahead – but July may still be chaotic with rain events for NZ, with 60 to 200mm falling in a number of regions, but totals should be closer to normal – and driest weather in the east, which is another hint that El Niño may be now slowly showing up in our atmosphere too.
INDIAN OCEAN…
*NEW FEATURE*
This month’s ClimateWatch includes some additional information on the Indian Ocean. ((See our video as Phil explains in more detail)).
Basically the Indian Ocean has it’s own version of El Niño and La Niña and it’s called the Dipole. If it leans “positive” then that is like the Pacific Ocean leaning into El Niño (and negative Dipole pushes warmer and wetter weather towards Africa).
This means Australia has a double whammy of drier than usual conditions expected late winter and early spring – and this can already shut down some rainmakers in the Southern Ocean. In fact, it may be one of the reasons why the West Coast of NZ leans drier than average coming up – despite rain events still occurring there.
SOIL MOISTURE…
WHAT IS ON THE WAY AIR PRESSURE-WISE?
RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY…
TEMPERATURES…
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Love all your videos but I do find the international stuff super interesting, especially since we seem to only have had one weather type for the last year (mild, rain). You have done some ‘weather snapshot round the globe’ type vids in the past, a request for more please!
Hi Mel, thanks for that. We’re hoping to make more interesting video content in 2024 (this year we’re focused on launching our new alerting app). Definitely something we’re keen on doing again once we get the time. Thanks for the keen interest!
– Phil D
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Mel on 9/07/2023 4:32am
Love all your videos but I do find the international stuff super interesting, especially since we seem to only have had one weather type for the last year (mild, rain). You have done some ‘weather snapshot round the globe’ type vids in the past, a request for more please!
Reply
WW Forecast Team on 9/07/2023 7:50pm
Hi Mel, thanks for that. We’re hoping to make more interesting video content in 2024 (this year we’re focused on launching our new alerting app). Definitely something we’re keen on doing again once we get the time. Thanks for the keen interest!
– Phil D
Reply