Gales to batter central areas on Thursday, after containers blown into Bluff harbour

Thursday, 16 May 2019

Gales blasted Bluff harbour on Wednesday.

After gales blew shipping containers into Bluff Harbour on Wednesday, its the turn of central areas to take a battering on Thursday.

MetService is expecting the strongest winds on Thursday to be in the southeast of the North Island, with a warning they could reach 140kmh in Tararua during the morning. Winds were expected to ease slowly during the day in the south of the South Island.

Despite that winds could still be gale strength about the Southland and Otago coasts for a time on Thursday, getting to 90kmh in north Otago until evening.

In the afternoon strong or gale southerlies could get to 100kmh about Banks Peninsula, MetService said. In the high country westerlies could get to 120kmh in the morning. In Marlborough northwesterlies could reach 90kmh in exposed places in the morning, then in the late afternoon gusts could get to 100kmh about the coast as the wind turned southerly.

Winds are not expected to be as strong in Wellington, but the capital is still in line for strong southerlies - along with rain when the wind turns from strong northwesterlies to strong southerlies late in the day.

The southerly change will bring cooler, but not particularly cold temperatures, with a chance the snow level could briefly drop to 900 metres in much of the South Island, and to 700m in Fiordland.

Around 7am Thursday the main part of the southerly change was sitting in the lower South Island, MetService meteorologist Tui McInnes said. 'It gets more defined as we go into the afternoon and it moves into the Canterbury Plains.'

During the early morning the rain was also around Dunedin and north Otago. 'As it (the southerly change) develops this afternoon, it will get a rain band with it,' McInnes said. Areas from Canterbury northward would get a burst of rain with the change. That would include Wellington and the lower North Island into the night.

'Though it's a reasonable southerly change, it's not bringing temperatures down too much. Tomorrow will be a bit cooler in the lower North Island and maybe upper South Island.'

On Friday a northerly would be picking up again.

'We're back in that weather pattern where we keep getting these fronts coming through,' McInnes said.

'The top half of the North Island is a little bit protected by a ridge of high pressure sitting over the Tasman Sea.'

Wind gusts recorded recently included 196kmh at Cape Turnagain about 5pm on Wednesday, then 187kmh at the same place a few hours later.

At Centre Island in Foveaux Strait, gusts got to 152kmh on Wednesday afternoon, and were still over 130kmh on Thursday morning.