Last day of spring heats up central New Zealand

MetService News Release
Monday 30 November 2015

The last weekend of spring brought warm temperatures to the North Island, with Napier getting the top temperature for a town or city of 29C on Saturday. Temperatures struggled a little in areas of the South Island, with Invercargill reaching its high of 14C on Sunday. A lot of places stayed dry for the majority of the weekend, but some caught the odd heavy shower, with Whangarei and Tauranga both recording 10mm in one hour on Saturday afternoon. Milford Sound was the wettest, topping up 70mm over the weekend.

The central and lower North Island is expected to reach temperatures today that are well above the average for this time of year. “Temperatures have already reached 25C in the northern Wellington region this afternoon,” said meteorologist Emma Blades. “Eastern and southern parts of the South Island will see their temperatures climb tomorrow, with locations in Canterbury and Central Otago possibly getting into the thirties,” Blades commented.

The warm, moist northwesterlies that are generating these temperatures will also bring plenty of cloud and patchy rain to most of the country over this week. As usual in these northwest flows, eastern areas will only see a sprinkling, but the west of the South Island is likely to receive significant rainfall on Tuesday through to Thursday. A Severe Weather Warning and Watch have been issued to cover this rainfall event.

Temperatures return to normal by the end of the week as the rain gradually moves up to the top of the North Island. Meanwhile another rain band reaches the bottom of the South Island on Friday, before travelling north on Saturday.

Over in the tropics, at 9am this morning Tropical Cyclone Tuni was situated around 160km northeast of Niue. Winds close to the centre are expected to be 75 km/h gusting up to 100 km/h and a gale warning remains in place for Niue. As TC Tuni tracks southeast, it is expected that the winds close to the centre will start to decrease to around 65 km/h tonight.

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