Hawke's Bay misses bad weather, mostly fine and dry this week

Schoolchildren cycle around Cornwall Park in Hastings during Monday's warm autumn weather. Photo / Warren Buckland

Sunny Hawke's Bay will largely miss the bulk of the rainy weather hitting New Zealand this week.

Along with Gisborne, Hawke's Bay is one of the "nice and dry" places this coming week, MetService meteorologist Tui McInnes said.

"It's actually quite a nice week for Hawke's Bay, which you can't really say for most of the rest of the country."

Heading towards winter, the country is currently in a prolonged period of westerly winds which is keeping everywhere in the west of the country quite wet, but the east is actually staying relatively dry, he said.

Hawke's Bay is the lucky spot when it comes to this region with blocking from the ranges keeping things dry and being a bit further north meaning any fronts that come over have started to weaken, somewhat diminishing cloud, McInnes said.

However, the mainly fine week will get a few showers possibly in the middle of the week and towards the weekend, but compared to the rest of Aotearoa they are "blips in the radar".

With the showers on Wednesday, the northwesterlies will change to westerly, but shouldn't be notably strong.

Over the weekend the country as a whole was quite muggy and warm, and Hawke's Bay has been no exception with Wairoa being the second hottest part of the country on Sunday at 27.3 degrees Celsius and Hastings the fifth hottest at 26.4C.

But these temperatures won't be lasting long.

The air coming from the north of New Zealand which has been causing this is now disappearing and, with the westerly wind, temperatures will be "bang on average" for this time of year in the low 20s for much of the week.

Overnight temperatures are also sitting at the average of about 10C.

Tuesday is forecast to be 27C in Hastings, 26C in Napier, 24C in Waipukurau and 25C in Wairoa.

Wednesday and Thursday will be in the low 20s throughout the region.

Friday may also be a little hotter, brought on by some gustier northwesterlies, McInnes said.

Hastings and Napier are currently forecast to reach 25C, Waipukurau 22C and Wairoa 24C.