SHOWERS ARRIVING IN NORTHLAND THIS AFTERNOON – MORE WET WEATHER TO COME

Showers arrive for Northland this afternoon, they hang around on and off through tomorrow then Sunday a front pushes in from the west with rain and it may be heavy especially in the east. Monday and Tuesday we have further showers or rain to deal with and this time there could be thunderstorms and downpours in the mix. The upper North Island is one of the driest places around the country at the moment so hopefully rain this weekend and heavy showers early next week helps.

Outlook below for Kaikohe for the next 10 days, for your specific location visit ruralweather.co.nz and use the search function.

BECOMING A LITTLE UNSTABLE AS WE GET INTO AUTUMN – MAYBE A TORNADO?

We haven’t really had much in the way of thunderstorms for New Zealand over the summer, but as we are getting into Autumn things are starting to heat up. The West Coast this afternoon has a low risk of some thunder in the ranges then as alluded to in the story above, many parts of the North Island especially in the north / west have a chance of thunderstorms on Monday and Tuesday. Even Wednesday could still see some instability and an isolated storm or two.

This instability is the result of humid surface conditions and some cold upper air during this time. I also wouldn’t be surprised to hear a small tornado has moved through somewhere early next week in the west or north of the North Island as winds (shear) is looking strong from just above the surface right into the upper atmosphere. If anything occurs, by their very nature a tornado will only affect a very small area, not worth worrying about but perhaps something to be mindful of if a strong thunderstorm looks to pass over.

The outlook for Waikato below shows storms on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. For more details on your location check out ruralweather.co.nz and use the search function.

PLACE TO BE COMING UP – LOWER SOUTH ISLAND

With the weather packing in for most of the country this weekend or early next week I often find the places that are a bit more unsettled than the rest of the country on average end up being the settled places. And that is the case for Southland from Sunday through to Wednesday with warm temperatures expected and light winds. Although, considering many want rain up north then a wet weekend may be the place to be for some.

Below is the graph for Lumsden, it actually starts to look nice from midday Saturday then there is a string of four dry settled days in a row. Tuesday and Wednesday especially temperatures will be in the mid twenty degree arena.