“All in all, very much a settled story thanks to that large area of high pressure.”
The MetService estimates Hastings will bake under 33C on Sunday which, while hot, is still a fair bit short of any all-time high.
“I’ve got January temps here and the highest I can see for Napier is 36.9 so, if we get to 33, that won’t even get into the top-five [hottest January days],” Law said.
“It’s a classic set up, with a bit of north-westerly [wind] coming through towards the end of the week to add an extra couple of degrees.”
The weather has been welcomed by Hawke’s Bay Cricket Association chief executive Craig Findlay, who is staging the region’s annual age-group cricket camps.
The camps have showcased the skills of future international players such as Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Ben Stokes, Trent Boult, Sophie Devine and Amelia Kerr since their inception in 1979, as well as being a tourism and hospitality boon.
The 2024 camps started on January 4 and run for 22 days.
Findlay jokingly threatened to resign last year, after wet weather saw the abandonment of several matches and a host of others transferred at short notice.
Instead of running a cricket tournament, he spent three weeks taking covers off and on sodden pitches.
This time around, a whopping 206 teams, from around the country, have converged on Hawke’s Bay for this year’s event, which comprises 549 games across 12 grades and 15 venues and incorporates 2440 players and their families.
Law says “it’s a very different weather story” from what greeted the cricketers at last year’s event.
That’s, in part, to a developing El Nino weather system.
“It’s still not quite a classic [El Nino],” Law said.
“It tends to be, with this high pressure, more of a westerly, so it still doesn’t have all the hallmarks of a classic.
“But it’s more that kind of idea of generally dryer, warmer conditions on that eastern side [of the country] as you would expect.”
