Source: MetService
Covering period of Thursday 27th November – Monday 1st December – Wet weather will be balanced by fine breaks over the next few days. The only constant will be the heat.
MetService has issued the following Warnings & Watches:
- An Orange Heavy Rain Warning for Westland until 1pm Thursday. Peak intensities between 25mm/h and 35mm/h are expected in the ranges.
- An Orange Strong Wind Warning for Canterbury High country including the foothills until 5pm Thursday. Northwesterly gusts of 120km/h are expected in exposed places.
- Heavy Rain Watches for: Grey, Buller, Tasman west of Takaka, Richmond and Bryant ranges, the Rai Valley on Thursday, continuing into Friday for the Tararua Range and Taranaki Maunga.
There have been over 5000 lightning strikes in the last 24 hours, at least 1000 of which were over land.
This morning (Thursday) hourly rain rates peaked at 27.4mm in Franz Joseph, Haast had 24mm, and Milford Sound had 20.5mm.
Temperatures are up and that looks to continue for the next few days. Among yesterday’s stats:
- Whanganui Airport reached 27°C, equal to the November record.
- Dunedin, Timaru, Oamaru, Hastings and Christchurch broke 30°C.
- Waimate was the warmest with 31.2°C.
MetService meteorologist Michael Pawley adds, “Today will be another warm day for most regions, especially those ones that had a scorcher yesterday. A heat alert is in place for Napier, which is expected to rise to 31°C today and stay muggy overnight. There are a few more hot days and muggy nights on the way too.”
On Friday most of the action moves to the North Island. Rain moves in from the west in the morning, then in the afternoon there is a chance of thunderstorms about northern and eastern regions.
Saturday looks to be the pick of the weekend. The skies will part just in time for the Lake Taupō Cycle challenge. Drier conditions are also on the way this weekend for the Godzone adventure race in Marlborough.
On Sunday, the weather starts to pack in again. A low-pressure system crawls out of the Tasman Sea, driving up the winds and dropping heavy rain about southern and central parts of the country. Then Monday will be a wet start to December, and meteorological summer, particularly for the North Island.
