Hawke’s Bay weather: Wild wind sticks around as changeable weather dominates

Flags are secured against the wind during the Ross Shield rugby matches at Park Island in Napier. Photo / Warren Buckland

A strong wind watch has been extended in Hawke’s Bay as a stream of fluctuating weather continues to dominate the end of the first week of the school holidays.

It comes as the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) officially declared the arrival of El Nino on Friday, with many meteorologists predicting a “rollercoaster” of weather moving forward.

Westerly gusts in exposed places south of Hastings were expected to reach 90km/h at times on Friday, with MetService extending a strong wind watch into early Saturday morning.

MetService meteorologist Ngaire Wotherspoon said it would likely be a weekend of ups and downs when it comes to weather, with patchy rain, temperature changes, wind gusts and even the possibility of frost.

“The country as a whole is under this quite strong disturbed westerly flow, which has a lot of fast-moving fronts embedded in it meaning there is quite a bit of on-and-off rain,” Wotherspoon said.

“This makes it quite hard to summarise the weather for a particular place.”

While Sunday could bring a small reprieve with some sunshine and higher-than-average temperatures, Wotherspoon said Monday was set to be cold and windy again.

“There will be some rain but nothing approaching warning levels. We’re probably expecting some more strong winds perhaps on Saturday but definitely on Monday.”

Auckland is also set for a wet, windy weekend with 100km/h wind gusts expected, signalling the start of some wild weeks ahead.