North Islanders prepare for six-metre waves, 80-90km/h gales

Saturday, 8 June 2019

Piha Beach on the west coast of Auckland, where wave heights are expected to get to around 4m on Saturday. (File photo)

Massive waves and strongs winds are expected to batter the North Island on Saturday.

Waves up to six metres high are expected on the west coast north of Raglan while there's a risk that strong southwest winds could approach severe gale strength in some places.

MetService said a strong, unstable southwest flow would be covering the country this weekend, adding to the weather woes.

There's a risk southwesterly winds could approach severe gale strength through Saturday in exposed areas of southern Northland, Auckland including Great Barrier Island, and the Coromandel Peninsula. There's also a risk during mid-afternoon for Banks Peninsula for strong winds.

Nearly the whole country is covered by coastal gale warnings, with a storm warning for the southwest of the South Island. In the Hauraki Gulf, south-westerlies could gust to over 90km/h, and could top 80km/h in the Manukau and Waitemata harbours.

Auckland could have some showers, and MetService is forecasting average wind speeds in central Auckland to be in the mid-40km/h range throughout the afternoon.

Wellington is expected to have a few showers with a strong late morning southerly change. Christchurch has a good chance of staying dry. It had some early morning southerlies, but the wind is expected to swing back to the southwest and to be strong.

MetService meteorologist Karl Loots said wave heights could get as high as 5.5-6m on the west coast north of Raglan during Saturday.

'It's certainly going to be pretty high today all the way through to this evening,' Loots said.

'We're expecting strong southwest winds there. It's going to be a high swell with strong winds and high seas; pretty rough seas, not great conditions.'

From overnight Saturday, conditions would start to ease.

'The underlying swell is still going to be quite high for tonight and into tomorrow.

'The swell comes from quite a distance away, and that will be lingering into tomorrow at least.'

Despite the large wave on the upper North Island's west coast, it's not a good day to go surfing.

In fact, MetService gave most of that coastline a surf quality rating of just 1 – the lowest possible.

Surf conditions are expected to improve into the start of next week.