Wacky Hawke’s Bay weather: Napier shrouded in unseasonal fog

The unseasonal early-afternoon November 1 fog descends on Napier. Photo / Paul Taylor

An unseasonal belt of Wednesday-afternoon fog shrouded Napier for about an hour, but with no apparent disruption to services such as flights at Hawke’s Bay Airport.

Air traffic control and Air New Zealand reported the airport had not been affected, but the situation was being monitored closely.

There were, however, two arrivals and subsequent departures that were a little later than scheduled.

Fog - almost unheard of in Napier from October to March, hung over the coastal areas, from Bay View to Awatoto, for up to an hour, moving onshore soon after 1pm.

The all-clear was given 30 minutes after the fog was at its densest. Photo / Paul Taylor

While it was fine mid-afternoon in Napier, with a temperature of 20C after 3.30pm, a MetService “severe thunderstorm watch” remained in place for the area from Bay of Plenty to the Tararua District from 1pm-9pm.

Issued at 8.20am, the advisory said thunderstorms were expected to develop over the central and southern North Island in the afternoon and evening, bringing heavy rain with intensities of 10-25mm/h, hail and the risk of small localised tornadoes or funnel clouds.

There was a moderate risk of “severe thunderstorms” developing in Hawke’s Bay and the Tararua District, producing localised downpours of 25 -40mm/h. This is more seasonal for Hawke’s Bay, which has over the years had some notable thunder and hail storms in November and December, while it’s almost three years since the November 9, 2020, Napier floods, which brought about 250mm of rain to the city and resulted in the declaration of Civil Defence state of emergency.

MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris said fog similar to that in Napier had descended more-expectedly in Christchurch and Dunedin on Wednesday morning.