11 December 2014

Return of the Low

It has been a very wet mid-week for central parts of New Zealand, as an area of low pressure moved across the Taranaki Bight bringing spells of heavy rain into Wellington, the Kapiti Coast and Horowhenua. Rainfall totals exceeded 60mm during the day at Paraparaumu. Across Cook Strait, it was a wet day as well for Marlborough and Nelson. Rainfall totals in Blenheim reached 21mm for the day, just slightly over the total reported by the same station for the whole of November.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the weather across the majority of New Zealand is forecast to return to more settled conditions as high pressure builds over far south.

"After the wet weather midweek, the weekend is shaping up to be a much drier affair for many places," said MetService meteorologist John Law. "However, some showers will bubble up along the South Island ranges, especially north of Arthurs Pass, and there'll be a few along the ranges of Hawke's Bay and Gisborne too." Areas of cloud are still set to linger over parts of the country, especially along the eastern coast, but some of the sunniest weather is forecast for southern Canterbury.

"However, MetService forecasters will also be keeping a close eye on some wetter weather pushing back onto Northland during Saturday, possibly sliding as far south as Auckland and the Coromandel for Sunday," said Law. "For the South Island, it looks like a dry day on Sunday."

Apart from some cloud expected to build over Lakes Taupo and Rotorua during Saturday, the forecast is dry for both the Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Taupo Half and Rotorua Half Ironman. Temperatures for the early start of these events are likely to be around 9C before climbing to around 20C at both locations through the day. Good luck to everyone taking part!

Next week could also potentially be a wet and windy affair, with another rapidly deepening area of low pressure possible bringing some heavy rain and thunderstorms back across the North Island for the start of the working week.

Keep up to date with the latest forecasts and any watches/warnings at metservice.com or on mobile devices at m.metservice.com. You can also follow our updates on MetService TV, at MetService New Zealand on Facebook, @metservice on Twitter and at blog.metservice.com.

ENDS

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