Welcome to the first day of October – here’s the WeatherWatch.co.nz outlook for October. We’ll keep it simple, focusing on headlines mainly:

• The start of October sees a shift to strong to gale westerlies over New Zealand (the end of September has been dominated by easterlies, which is more like La Nina). This arrives next week and kicks in across Wednesday to many regions.
• Speaking of La Nina – the “La Nina-like” conditions around NZ and eastern Australia over the past few weeks looks set to fade away again in the first half of October (La Nina still isn’t locked in for this spring or summer but it’s hovering near it at the moment. Additional: NIWA said on Friday they believe La Nina is “less likely” in the first part of 2017). This westerly change will blow the La Nina-like weather away for a time.
• New Zealand’s weather to be dominated by airflows directly out of the tropics/Australian desert in the start of October. 
• We may be looking at temperatures closer to 30 degrees soon in some eastern areas as we 1) get air from Australia’s interior and 2) get that warm air as a strong nor’wester. 
• While the first half of October looks more westerly dominated, the tropics north of New Zealand are very wet and stormy right now. There are some indications we may see wetter, more humid, weather later in October – but by no means locked in.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz