Wet Chilly Conditions Followed By Warm Sunshine
News Release from MetService
Issued at 01:02pm
13-Oct-2003
Wet and chilly conditions to be followed by warm sunshine
Heavy rain washed across Northland and Bay of Plenty yesterday and over Wellington and southern Wairarapa today. MetService meteorologists are forecasting that chilly southerly winds should spread along the east coast of the South Island today and reach gale force about Wellington and coastal Wairarapa overnight with some snow showers down to the 600 metres level in the Wairarapa hills. Warm sunny days are forecast to follow later in the week.
MetService Weather Ambassador, Bob McDavitt, says that wet and chilly conditions have been the pattern, on-and-off, for the past month or so. "Lows have been moving onto New Zealand from the Tasman Sea with regular rains occurring mostly on the weekend. The northern quarter of the country has already had over half of its normal October rainfall this month. Rainfall intensities were measured as high as 24 mm in an hour at Whakatane on Sunday, and many spots were overwhelmed by the cloud bursts."
McDavitt says that there is now some signs of a change in the weather pattern. "A large high pressure system is expected to move slowly across northern New Zealand this weekend, bringing several warm sunny days. By the end of October we should be seeing more days with westerly winds bringing showery weather to western area and sunny warm days to eastern areas."
ENDS