It only took until the middle of the year, but NZ’s largest city finally has the weather forecast they wanted six months ago – mostly dry, mostly sunny and mostly calm across Auckland.

The south-easterly air flow of this week (caused by a large but weak sub-tropical low) is Auckland’s sunniest wind direction. The ranges of Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay, also Coromandel Peninsula and the Kaimai Ranges all do their part to strip cloud and moisture from that airflow into our most populous region. In summer it can make for scorching hot weather. In winter it can make for gorgeous days but colder nights.

For the next couple more days winds will be driven from the south to south-east. Early next week it tilts a little more sou’west. “It’s incredible the tiniest shift in wind direction in Auckland from a Southerly to a Sou-Wester can make all the difference between being cloud-free and sunny to then being cloudier with even the risk of a light shower off the Tasman Sea” says WeatherWatch.co.nz head forecaster Philip Duncan. “But even this slight sou’west change next week will still mean a mostly dry week ahead, there just may be a few more cloudy spells”.

But on the eastern side of the main ranges it’s a different story, with more cloud and patchy rain or showers, especially up around Gisborne and northern Hawke’s Bay and some eastern parts of Northland and Coromandel Peninsula. The good news is that these saturated regions will also see a drier week coming up, especially as winds tilt more south to south-west – which makes it sunnier and drier in the east of NZ.

“The next 7 days across most of New Zealand lean drier than average for just about every part of the country” says Duncan. “As we progress through next week it will warm up further too, with northerlies potentially briefly out of the sub-tropics by the end of next week”.

High pressure from Australia is to thank for the break in the rain for Auckland – but it may well be the first real signs of El Niño developing, which could see many parts of NZ transition this year away from heavy rain events to drier conditions. “For now, though, we’re in a neutral/chaotic weather pattern which means anything can happen”.

#Latest: The Bureau of Meteorology has increased the chances of #ElNiño forming from 50% to 70%.

This moves it from just a 'watch' to an official 'El Niño Alert'.

📈More details from BoM: https://t.co/utdyXfML8x

🖥️NZ's June/Winter ClimateWatch update: https://t.co/mNBKTwulBn pic.twitter.com/9nCies0BXW

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) June 6, 2023

Also, it's kinda weird how @Twitter converts the "#ElNiño" hashtag into a Baby Yoda emoji … 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/8vM0OPfWDg

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) June 6, 2023

WeatherWatch.co.nz / RuralWeather.co.nz