2:42pm Thu — It’s farewell to Lola, for now. The historic cyclone, which was the earliest Category 5 tropical storm on record in the entire Southern Hemisphere, has fallen apart just as fast the storm rapidly developed.

The cyclone exploded to life over 48 hours before falling apart just 48 hours later, a total of four days from Sunday to today. The before-season tropical cyclone formed 10 days before the official cyclone season started, and whilst it had a bubble of ideal conditions around Vanuatu the unfavourable conditions that exist further south meant it was always going to fall apart.

It’s now a tropical depression heading towards New Caledonia with some rain and thunderstorms.

But Lola’s journey isn’t totally over.

Lola’s remnants will then drift into the northern Tasman Sea over the next 48 hours where it will merge with another small low offshore from Brisbane – bringing a larger new low pressure system to life over the top of Norfolk Island on Saturday. This sub-tropical low will then deepen a little and track into powerful high pressure further south over NZ. This is likely to going create a “squash zone” of gale nor’easters in parts of the upper North Island over Sunday and Monday, bringing the risk of isolated power cuts and trees down.

There may also be some heavy rain in some northern locations. Due to the nature of the large high pressure zone to the south along with the low to the north, there will likely be a fine line between rain and dry weather – which means forecasts and risk areas may still change a bit in the coming days. Keep up to date with MetService watches and severe weather outlooks.

Our latest weather video gives details on the future of Lola’s weather remnants and what that possibly means for New Zealand.

WeatherWatch..co.nz