This weekend a low is deepening well north of New Zealand, north of Vanuatu and Fiji. It will deepen over the warmest waters of the south west Pacific, then develop into a severe tropical cyclone. 

It’s still early to lock in an exact path.  Many computer models that New Zealanders look at online show a nasty storm moving towards northern New Zealand just after the middle of March.  Other models that WeatherWatch.co.nz use, and rely on, show it may track well east of us.  Either way – we’re somewhat in the middle of these potential pathes…and also at the end, as tropical cyclones don’t ‘technically’ live on south of about the Far North area.

So while the exact route isn’t yet confirmed, the likely general path will first take the deepening low on a meandering path through some of the tropical island nations directly north of us over the coming week.  Like NZ, they may also miss a direct hit but with the storm likely to be far more intense over the warm tropical waters nations like Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and even Fiji, they will be on high alert soon due to the potential of a severe tropical storm.

Sea surface temperatures are a major component for fuelling tropical storms.  The water in the 300km zone just north of Northland is much cooler than the waters around New Caledonia.  This means the low may look intense as it rushes towards us after March 15th – but it’s highly likely the low will then quickly unravel and lose a lot of its energy as it, potentially, nears us.

There’s no point in focusing on any regional forecasts this far our – if the low slides 100kms further east we may have little to no impact weatherwise, so no point in stressing about it now until we can lock something in with some confidence (probably later next week).  But even a nearby offshore ex cyclone can cause serious swells and deadly rips along our coastlines – and with so many Kiwis still hitting the beaches and coastlines (as the beach water is now at its warmest) and with so many computer models confirming an ex tropical low is likely to track our way, we wanted to give you the latest information we have, so you could better plan ahead.

The general forecast from WeatherWatch.co.nz for this month is that conditions still look drier rather than wetter, so if you have an important outdoor event after March 15th the general forecast hasn’t changed yet – we’re still forecasting a mostly dry weather pattern.

InfoGraphic: Generally speaking conditions are perfect for a storm to develop in the blue shaded area north of NZ.  The red/orange shaded area is what is referred to as the “cone of uncertainty”.  The black line in the middle is a rough middle ground between some of the models. However even today two new seperate sets of data suggest the low could travel another 500kms further west or east of this area. On March 19th the low may be near northern NZ – or be quickly moving away from us to the south east – so still a long way to go before we know if any serious risks for NZ – or perhaps just a weak low that might give some farmers a wet helping hand in the upper North, or even just an offshore low with some big swells for the surfers. Either way – regular updates at WeatherWatch.co.nz throughout next week.  Graphic / Kimi Knight, WeatheWatch.co.nz/CountyTV.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz