Will Hawke’s Bay reach 30 degrees this summer? Blame it on La Nina

The hills around Havelock North, part green and barely January-brown. Photo / Paul Taylor.

Hawke’s Bay’s return to traditional summer days with a few scorchers over 30 deg could be up to a year away, thanks to the persistence of La Nina.

The hottest temperatures of the summer school holidays, which end this weekend, have barely touched 29deg, and with no forecast for anything over 26deg, the end of next week will mark a whole year since plus-30deg temperatures were last recorded in the region.

Ironically, when those temperatures were recorded on February 3 and 4, 2022, Napier was in the throes of its first ever heat alert as weather and climate authorities monitored selected hot spots around the country.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) says that during a La Niña event, ocean water from off the coast of South America cool temperatures to below average.

The cooling occurs because of stronger than normal easterly trade winds, which churns cooler, deeper sea water up to the ocean’s surface.

NIWA meteorologist Seth Carrier says that the northwesterly conditions more common to Hawke’s Bay are not happening, and apart from brief moments, are unlikely to happen again before well into next summer.

The near-record temperature three years ago came in the same year as more than 250mm of rain fell in Napier in just a few hours, precipitating some of the city’s worst flooding and a civil defence State of Emergency.

While last year was the warmest in NIWA records, it was a year of near-record rainfall in Hawke’s Bay, marked by the 1313mm at Hawke’s Bay Airport, the third-highest in records in the area dating back to 1870.

It was the third consecutive year of La Niña, which NIWA says is known as a “triple dip”, an uncommon occurrence that last happened in 1998-2000.