It’s looking increasingly likely that the tropics will impact New Zealand’s weather as we head towards the middle of February with WeatherWatch.co.nz today saying there is a big disruption coming to the weather patterns well north of us as early as next week.

While no direct storm is forecast to hit New Zealand there may be several low pressure systems that form north of us and drift into the New Zealand area or even Tasman Sea. There’s also a chance there may be a tropical cyclone or two around Fiji in the coming week and the remnants of that may also impact NZ – again not as a direct storm at this early stage but with humidity, cloud, swells and even wind and rain in some spots.

The reason why there is more tropical energy is because the highs in the NZ area are sinking further south over the South Island allowing lows in the tropics to massively expand southwards. 

The reason why there is so much uncertainty for direct impacts over NZ is because of this solid belt of high pressure further south which will push back against the tropical lows – this will make a ‘squash zone’ of easterly quarter winds for the upper North Island in particular. It also makes this a battle of the air pressure systems – will the southern highs push back and keep NZ settled or will the tropical lows overwhelm the highs and push south bringing NZ wind, rain and humidity? We’ll keep you posted as the models start to firm up.

FRIDAY FEB 8th

MONDAY FEB 11th

– WeatherWatch.co.nz