Here’s what is making the weather headlines today.

#FloodRisk map for the next 24 hours, highlighting areas with the highest rainfall accumulation.

⚠️LIVE MetService Warnings here: https://t.co/7xoHnjeNiw
💧UPDATED hyper-local rainfall totals here: https://t.co/D35ySCkVqG / https://t.co/gb7E1quzdb pic.twitter.com/0dyKb1qrWE

— WeatherWatch.co.nz (@WeatherWatchNZ) August 16, 2022

HEAVY RAIN – NORTHWEST SOUTH ISLAND

Heavy rain feeds in the West Coast and top of the South Island today, it’s the northwestern corner (western Marlborough across to Tasman then down along the coast to Greymouth) that gets the heaviest rain. Overnight heavy rain may spread a little further southwards along the coast reaching Haast.

Please keep up to date with the latest warnings from Metservice here. Also keep an eye out for the latest video from Phil on this website around midday.

Thursday and perhaps Friday morning sees heavy rain for the upper / western North Island also.

• 

• 

PRECIPITATION NEXT TWO WEEKS

These maps below show what totals may fall over the next couple of weeks.

As we can see in this first map which runs from the 16th – 24th August, clearly there is a lot of rain due for the West Coast and top of the South Island. Also the western North Island. And look where it’s feeding down from, the tropics.

Eastern regions not so wet.

This second map runs from the 24th August – 1st September, and the weather appears to be calming down. There is still some rain for western regions and the eastern North Island this time around but definitely not as heavy. The eastern South Island looks dry and settled.

Towards the end of this month long range models indicate a large slow high moving in, hopefully that comes to fruition.

The above is a colour coded key in regards to the rain for the maps above. Measured in mm.

ANY SNOW DUE FOR THE SKI FIELDS?

Unfortunately there is no overly cold air moving in for a while, it’s all northerlies and warm air at the moment.

Looking further afield, perhaps around the 26th August there may be some colder air thanks to a cold front bringing some snow for the ranges of both Islands as it moves through, so hopefully this develops.

The 850mb map below shows what the temperature is like at roughly about 1500m high up in the atmosphere.

• 

•