Tropical Cyclone Ruby is now a Category 2 tropical storm and has potential to reach ‘severe’ Cat 3 status within the next 24 hours as it approaches New Caledonia.

🌀🚨#BreakingNews: Tropical Cyclone #RUBY is now Category 2 and may reach 'severe' Category 3 strength within the following 24 hours.#NouvelleCaledonie #Vanuatu #NewZealand #TCRuby pic.twitter.com/GrPdhI6pGD

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) December 12, 2021

This week New Zealand (and New Caledonia) are experiencing a classic La Nina summer. Tropical Cyclone Ruby formed on Sunday afternoon and just over half a day later was already Category 2 and is still gaining power, plus we have numerous other low pressures all linking up – and it’s going to produce a lot of rain, cloud, humidity and drizzle for parts of New Zealand.

The cyclone itself may well stay offshore from New Zealand later this week – but the lows around NZ will connect to it, all linking “arms” to help pull down moisture-rich tropical air over NZ and that brings with it drizzle, downpours and high humidity. (See our homepage for more news stories relating to the week ahead and Tropical Cyclone Ruby).

The rain this week in NZ will actually precede the tropical cyclone (which will technically be ex-tropical by the time it gets closest to NZ – this is because the core of the storm switches from warm air to cold air).

Rainfall totals vary – and our IBM supercomputer ‘Watson’ is helping crunch all the reliable models to produce some simple easy to read totals for your hyper-local part of NZ.

Some of the bigger rainfall estimates for this week:
Auckland: 50 to 100mm
Waihi Beach: 130 to 150mm
Tauranga & Katikati: Around 120mm
Whakatane & Kawerau: Around 150mm
Stratford: Around 110mm
Taupo: 70 to 90mm
Nelson: 70 to 90mm

Meanwhile those in New Caledonia should be paying close attention to Meteo France updates.

ECMWF tracking for #CycloneRuby (ex-tropical by the time it reaches NZ) for Thursday night. It's possible it will clip NZ with damaging winds – but for now the main focus this week is on #rain which will drench some areas.https://t.co/eveWdQiaoB for hyper-local rainfall totals. pic.twitter.com/Bxx2x5tzsc

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) December 12, 2021

Rainfall totals and other data from www.RuralWeather.co.nz – powered by our partners at IBM.