Back to "Normal" Autumn Weather Pattern

In the wake of last week, the weather looking ahead is a lot closer to “normal” for New Zealand autumn. A low to the west of Taranaki is expected to track east tomorrow, bringing showers and possible hail for a time to some North Island and northern South Island areas. Further south a cold front and southerlies bring cloud and scattered rain to the east coast today before breaking to fine tomorrow, though a few showers linger in the south as another, weaker cold front moves northward.

The first half of April has been a wet one with two major systems crossing New Zealand. The remnants of Cyclone Debbie affected a widespread area of the North Island early this month and the latest combination of a slow moving low in the Tasman sea with the short sharp hit from Cyclone Cook has led to above average rainfall for a lot of regions.

A quick look at the cumulative rainfall, most areas north of Bay of Plenty along the east coast have received over double their monthly averages. Whakatane has recorded 267mm of rain so far this month (average rainfall for the whole of the month of April is 117mm) and Whitianga 338mm (April average is 168mm) which are both the highest on record for the month of April since 1991. This last week the South Island didn’t get off ‘scot free’ either with Nelson getting an unusual 153mm already this month (about triple their April average). More can be found on the week that was and the impacts of Cyclone Cook on our blog http://info.metraweather.com/e/60812/CycloneCookSummary/cpjlvd/526802093.

It does look as if a more regular weather pattern of predominating westerlies will be the recipe for the later part of April as Georgina Griffiths predicted in our rural monthly outlook (available at http://info.metraweather.com/e/60812/MonthlyOutlook/cpjltn/526802093). “Though showers are expected for those hard hit areas of Bay of Plenty over the next couple of days, with isolated thunderstorms possible, a ridge pushing onto the country on Tuesday marks a more settled weather pattern for the area and generally the country” said April Clark, meteorologist at Metservice.

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