Summer to briefly disappear as front moves up country

Sunday, 10 December 2023

People out enjoying the sun at Mission Bay beach in Auckland on Saturday.

Warm temperatures and blue skies that saw Aucklanders flock to popular beaches like Mission Bay yesterday, are set to disappear - at least briefly.

A front moving up the country was last night expected to cause havoc in the western parts of the South Island, particularly Fiordland - with forecasters warning of heavy rain, possible flooding, and strong wind.

The latter was keeping Fire and Emergency crews busy, as the wind fanned several vegetation fires across the South Island. Helicopters with monsoon buckets and crews from five brigades around Central Otago worked on a fire near Clyde while police evacuated nearby freedom campers.

The fire was thought to have reignited from fireworks. Other fires were keeping crew busy yesterday at Templeton in the Selwyn District, and at Glenham in Southland.

An orange heavy rain warning was to be in place through to the early hours of this morning for Fiordland and the southern half of the West Coast, with “intense” rain of 150-180mm expected.

Today it will also bring cooler temperatures, wind and rain to Wellington and Wairarapa, before slowly moving up the North Island to bring wet weather to Auckland.

The blue skies and sun will likely disappear by Sunday, thanks to a front moving up the country.

While it’s expected to lose steam as it travels north - with Auckland not seeing the intensity expected in the south, MetService meteorologist Dan Corrigan said temperatures would be easing off with the damp.

While sunny Auckland saw a high of 23C yesterday, it would slowly drop down to 20 by early in the week. Wellingtonians, who have also been enjoying warm and dry conditions this week, would possibly see heavy rain this morning, but conditions would improve for Monday.

The warmest place in the country today will be Hawke’s Bay, with a balmy high of 27C expected - although even that region was expected to gather cloud by the afternoon. Elsewhere, fresh south westerly winds were expected in places like Auckland, New Plymouth, Westport, Invercargill, and Dunedin.

The country is looking ahead to an El Nino summer which Niwa says can bring stronger or more frequent winds from the west, dryness in eastern areas and more rain in the west - the last one experienced was the summer of 2015-2016.