Our last report talked about a change in New Zealand’s weather pattern, to a more Autumnal one.

The biggest change has been that in between most highs we’re now getting brief small lows that bring rain – even into our drought areas.
While it hasn’t been enough to bring solid relief, it has been helpful – and rain from Cyclone Pam also saw significant reversals of dry conditions in northern and north eastern areas.

We accurately predicted Cyclone Pam in our March report – WeatherWatch.co.nz talked about this on March 1st – and we were the only forecaster to do so.

With April here the outlook is looking similar to March, but perhaps without any cyclones now.
Pam was so powerful she actually carved out a massive chunk of warm water north of NZ (like a bath, warm water on the top, cold water down below…Pam acted like a hand stirring/mixing it all up and generally cooling things down north of us.

April does have a couple of Tasman Sea lows, bringing rain into our drought zones and other dry areas…however we may see some areas, particularly in the North Island, creep a bit drier later into April, due to a lack of lows and increasing high pressure.
Of course, with late April we do tend to see the Southern Ocean waking up – and we hope that produces rain into our drought regions…but without the cold air to limit grass growth.

– Philip Duncan, WeatherWatch.co.nz Head Weather Analyst