Over a month into summer and the upper North Island is sodden and in desperate need of some truly summer weather – and next week sees the best chance of that happening.

Various models are in agreement that next week may be the most settled week of summer so far for the North Island – as a large high rolls in. 

But it’s not cut and dry.

The high itself will again track over the central or southern part of the country – and while it will do its best to push a protective barrier around the entire North Island it may not have enough oomph to stop the easterly flow over the top half of the North Island.  This easterly flow could produce more cloud and the odd shower – but so far the data suggests drier weather is more likely than recent conditions.

The models suggest that most of the North Island and much of the South Island will see very little rain – but that northern and north eastern parts of the North Island are most at risk of showers – in other words, the same pattern we’ve seen since the start of December.

Then of course there’s that potential ex-cyclone next week.  While the models show it won’t directly hit us, it could still fuel the easterly wind over the upper North Island with more cloud, humidity and showers.

So we’ll be monitoring it closely – and fingers crossed this incoming high does find the right conditions to protect Auckland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and Northland from the relentless wet stuff.

– Image / January Friday 20th shows a big high over the country, but possibly a few showers over the upper North Island.  The low to the north east is likely to be an ex-tropical cyclone.  Image / weathermap

– WeatherWatch.co.nz