Kiyota.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the.
New Zealand Herald.
New Zealand's summer is shaping up to be hotter and drier than usual. The country's forecast is shrugged off the rainy start of summer, with temperatures soaring into the thirties in some parts in the coming weeks, but moving through January and February, the weather patterns are predicted to become more Lanina like, bringing chances of more rain events.
So as the country gears up for the summer break. Today on the Front Page.
We're looking at what is on the cards weatherwise for the weeks and months ahead with Met Service Meteorologist John Law. First off, John, November still felt quite cold at night here in Auckland. But in the last week you can feel summer has arrived. What's changed or is it just me?
Not you at all? Chelsea. We had definitely some really cool nights coming through at the end of November. The winds swung around towards the south and it brought with it that cold air up and across New Zealand. Now we started off December back in northwesterly winds now meter. I just like said as are obsessed with the wind. It really helps tell the story of where the air
is coming from. And that's what we've been really seeing, is that influx of warm air that spread across New Zealand and the last few days, it has to be said, we had some really warm days and as you say, really warm nights as well. In fact, coming up over the next couple nights, particularly across the eastern side of the country, we're going to find those nighttime temperatures a real talking point. It's going to be pretty truly tricky
sleeping conditions. I think people in Hawk's Bay and givesbon. Over the next ste few nights anyway.
We're still seeing rain in the South Island and a lot of cloud up in north. Is this usual for this time of year, Well, yeah, it's not unheard of.
And again same idea. Those northwesterly wings bring the warmth, but they also bring the moisture, particularly in those areas exposed to the west. So you can imagine that running down from north to south across the South Island is the Southern Alps and that acts as a really good barrier and block but it also forces the moisture up, generating the cloud and the rainfall.
Looking ahead, what sort of summer are we expecting? Are we expecting hot and dry, muggy, a bit of both.
That's the real million dollar question. It is that when we were one of those ones to be really keeping a close eye. Obviously as we head through towards someone, we're expecting the temperature to pick up. That's not unheard of.
I think as we go through in towards say at the end of December start of next year, could start finding higher pressure building across the southern parts of the country, perhaps bringing some dry weather through there, but it still leaves us open to more of that warmth and moisture coming in from the north. So perhaps those more northern parts of New Zealand and around towards perhaps that eastern coast in a touch win way of cloud at warm
and moisture coming through there. So perhaps warm but not necessarily dry, particularly across those northern areas. But I think perhaps the dryer weather down towards those more southern parts of New Zealand, that has to be said, though that's not the story for the whole of the summer. I think as we go through the rest of December, we might find there's still a fair bit more rain to come for those western and southern coasts of the South Island.
Well, it often feels like New Zealand gets hotter later on in summer, around February, after everyone's had their holiday and his back at work.
Could that be the case this summer as well? Yeah, I think so.
If you think about how the temperture builds, it is definitely one of those stories that you know you get your warmer tempertures towards the end of the summer, So that's definitely not out of the question. So I think we could find as we go through in towards January and right into forwards February, we'll find those tempatures continue to pick up, so we will find some wants to
come through there. If we see anything in those systems developing up towards the north, they'll bring with them that warmt in from the subtropics, also that moisture as well. But it is definitely saying for keeping a close on here in the forecast room. We're keeping a very closer
check on the weather up to the Pacific neighbors. That has a rule bearing on our weather down here in New Zealand as we head through the summertime, very what high temperatures actually the time of year, places like Hawk's Bay up to around about twenty nine even thirty degrees
celsius as we head through the daytime. It's worth saying that with those warm nights as well, there's not much time to lose the heat of the day, so we'll find it stays very warm even through the nighttime, and with the daytime temperatures on Thursday still pretty high as well, well worth keeping an eye on the temperaures. There is going to be at a very hot story on at these eastern areas because of those warm nights coming through.
Met Services forecasting maximum temperatures of up to eight degrees celsius above average for this time of year for Gisbon and Hawk's Bay and the eastern South Island midweek. How unusual is this because eight degrees does seem like quite a jump.
Yeah it is.
I mean we have to say, looking at the areas like Napier, it's not unheard or for this time of year that subjucts. So we are now very much in December, the warmest December templture we've got for Napier is thirty seven point five, so that's really very high. So we're looking at temperatures around about thirty one. So to get temperatures into the thirties in December, it's not unheard of, but it is unusual. So we're looking at temperatures definitely
being warm to start December. Most of those higher temperatures things like that thirty seven back in nineteen ninety four right at the end of the season, back towards the Christmas New Year holiday period there. But I think it's definitely a warm start to December, let's say a hot start December.
Met Services heat alerts have also begun for the summer season, with the first likely to be issued this week.
First off, what.
Is a heat alert and why should people take notice of them?
That's a really good question. So these alets we normally do from the first of December, so literally just rolled in. And what we're looking at is two main factors that can stark those heat alerts. The first is your daytime backsim temperature being in the top one percent of the higher temperatures that we see in that location. So we use these heat alerts around about forty four different locations
around each of the we've got different thresholds. For example, places like Hastens to generally tend to see warmer temperatures Hastings in christ Church, then you'd find in perhaps somewhere like ok Tiget. So there's no point having the same temperature at each of those threshold points. So we have higher thresholds those areas which tend to find higher temperatures, so for places like the eastern side of New Zealand
compared to the western side. So that's one method is the daytime temperature is going to be in that top one percent of record temperatures. And the other way is by what we're looking at in the next couple of days is if we have a run of two days and an incredibly warm night, which can also truckle over that threshold temperature as well. So it's the combination of warm days. It's not necessarily as hot as those single threshold temperatures, but that combination of hot days and warm
nights which mean there's no respite to come through. And it's really a case that these aren't temperatures that for many of us shouldn't cause a problem. But if you're already vulnerable to those temperatures, the very old or the very young, or if you're planning lots of outdirectivities, it's also really important to make sure you're aware that these temperatures are happening and that you can take precautions and be safe in the heat.
And I suppose the fire services around the country will be taking a good notice of those as well.
That's right. It's also the time we start to look at fire danger as well. The team over at FENDS Firements and Museum take a really key i on the weather as we head through towards summer. Dry conditions, hot conditions and also windy conditions, three things you don't want
when you're trying to battle the fire. So it's really important to keep up to date with the fire danger again, you can find it on the mets AS website and keep up to date with the information from your local FENDS team as well, because it's really important before you head out and do your outdirectivities to be aware that if it's going to be dry, hot and windy, those are not days that you want to be thinking about fires.
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research or Niewer said that there was just over a fifty percent chance of Larninia developing by the end of the year. But the year's almost done and there's still no Larnania.
Where is she.
It's a very good question. Well, these things are very very we're looking at different temperatures to run through more than anything else. It's still very possible the Larninia pattern could fall through. So Larnina is one of the three conditions of the end, so the El Nino sudden oscillation pattern, there's El Nino, there's Larannina, and there's also a neutral, which is where you're not quite in the conditions for
either of the other two. So it's still a possibility that as we head towards the end of the year, or perhaps in towards the style next year, we could find a short lived, weak lar Ninia pattern, although we may not find it eventuates in terms of the sea surface temperatures, which is what we look at for places like the Pacific to to get those characteristics. We may well find a somewhat of an influence from other climactic variations and controls on other parts of the globe.
And with lar Ninia that comes with rain doesn't.
It it does. It has different impacts on different parts of New Zealand. Generally, when we think about alan Nia, particular in the summertime, we tend to think of higher pressure out towards the eastern side of us in New Zealand, which tends to give a bit more of a northwesterly flow over the top. So you can imagine that those areas exposed to the north and to the east their
places a bit like say the Bear of Plenty. Perhaps that eastern coast of the North ise seeing a touch more cloud a bit more on the way of moisture and rainfall through there, whereas other parts of the country, places like the western side of the South isd And and towards the south then have drier conditions. So it depends
where you are on how the impacts will be. But of course it is only takes one system to bring a fair bit of rainfall from the north to change your entire feel for how that season's gone.
I read somewhere that New Zealand's location on Earth makes it especially hard to lock in monthly or seasonal forecasts due to the extremely chaotic nature of the weather.
Here is this true, and New Zealer is a fantastic place to be a weather forecast. I get so much variation. To the north of US, we have the tropics and their influence on us is really important. What happens in the tropics, has it feed down towards us, the remains of these systems run through through there. But also to the south of US we have this giant mass of ice, the Antarctic continent, which is another great the controller of climate as well, and it's the interplay between those. We're
surrounded by water as well. All these factors come into bringing their own special challenges that to write in those longer term forecasts, and it's wor're saying that the longer term forecasts are much more of a guide to see how things compare to normal war and air thing ass above or below or around what you'd expect. So there's a lot more variability into in those places, particularly if
you head further away. So it's definitely one to keep an eye on, but it is very hard to pin down the finer details.
For me, it was quite interesting looking at London, for instance, at twenty five degrees in June, which was more what you'd see in the Barcelona at the time of the
year for us. I think this summer we're going to see some sort of similar effects in the fact that we have the background woman, but also we're likely going to see marine heat waves kicking off again around the country, and that was a big driving factor behind, you know, some of those scorching temperatures we've seen in the North over the summer.
My colleague Jamie Morton last month reported on research.
Showing that combined land and.
Sea heat waves could become a lot more common over the coming decades.
Are we seeing any.
Signs of concern around potential heat waves this summer.
One of the reasons we have for the heat alerts is because of that importance of heat in how it impacts us as humans and how it plays through prolonged periods of warmth and heat are definitely things we keep in a close eye on, particularly those days when we start to find the temperatures towards the record end of the tempertures more than anything else, So it is an area we're concerned out here in met Service, which is the reasons we've started these trials are the heat alerts
to try and see how we can help highlight those dangers through there.
In terms of heat waves, is what is a heat wave? Does it have to have, you know, be above thirty forty degrees for a prolonged period of time to be called that.
That's a really good question. I don't know if we actually have a definition here in New Zealand for a heat wave. What we tend to look at for our heat alerts is if the temperature is in that top one percent of the temperatures recorded in that station, and so that location is based on location and on various thresholds. Through there, we.
Haven't seemed to have had as many extreme weather events this year compared to say, summer twenty twenty three. Has New Zealand's climate behald pretty much as expected this year.
We've definitely had some interest in weather. We've had some heavy rainfall in that western coast of southbound. We've had that prolonged period of heavy rain down three places like Dunedin and Clusa through there as well. We haven't seen much more from that, But compared to the last few seasons, we've had some incredibly wet times and some very warm times, it hasn't been quite as extreme in that sense, but we've definitely had some interesting weather over the last years so far.
And finally, I guess the question that everybody always wants to know and one that you probably get sick of hearing around this time of year. Have we any idea of what Christmas Day is going to be like?
Ah, it's a question that as soon as the canda ticks over to December, people open their Advent Canada and they started to think, what is the forecasting for Christmas Day? It's still a fair way away, but I think it's one of those ones that we're keeping a real close eye. It's way too far in advance to give you any
really good guidance in the forecast. Once we start to get to round about ten days out will give you a bit more of a better The best advice as ever is to keep update of the forecast even through the Christmas period. The team here will be working right their way through, so although you know most we'll be having a bit of a time off, there'll be forecasts on chef keeping you updated with all the forecasts, so you can find those and how we plan which beats
you go to for your barbie. But I think it's gonna be a bit later until we get a firm forecast for Christmas Day.
Thanks for joining us, John.
Thanks Chelsea.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.