Seven-year-old Kailyn Rapana is surrounded by frost, near Moerewa yesterday morning. Photo / Joey Rapana
Seven-year-old Kailyn Rapana is surrounded by frost, near Moerewa yesterday morning. Photo / Joey Rapana
Northland is not out of the frosts yet but the good news is temperatures will rise a smidgen as we head into the weekend.
Nearly all major centres in the region recorded temperatures below 5C on Tuesday and yesterday, and Whangarei Airport dipped to 2.5C briefly yesterday morning, which was the coldest temperature recorded by MetService in Northland so far this year.
Minimum air temperatures were 5.1C at Kaitaia Airport, 3.5C at Kaikohe and 3C at Kerikeri. But with the temperatures generally being recorded at airports, the mercury would have been at lower levels elsewhere across the region.
Trinda Beckham Steen captured this image of Jack Frost's icy fingers spreading over the roof of a car in Kaitaia. Photo / Trinda Beckham
MetService meteorologist Georgina Griffiths said another frosty morning awaited Northlanders this morning but the risk was not so widespread across the region. Inland and eastern areas like Whangarei, Bay of Islands and Kerikeri would be particularly vulnerable, she said.
Ms Griffiths said cloudy skies this morning in the western half of Northland should help alleviate the risk of frosts in areas like Kaitaia, Hokianga and Dargaville.
Daytime temperatures would hover around 12C to 14C and between 4C and 8C overnight in the lead-up to the weekend.
Ice crystals on a fencepost near Moerewa yesterday. Photo / Joey Rapana
"It will still be cool ... won't become magically hot, but not as cool as the country experienced over the last few days. The snow event in the South Island and floods in Whanganui rolled over and the southerlies transported that cold to Auckland and Northland," she said.
Ms Griffiths said July would still be a cold month for Northland.
She said temperatures of -20C experienced in the South Island this week were a rare event, as they happened three to four times per century.
Birds need a helping hand so they can take a dip in the bird bath in Dale Bolton's. Photo / Dale Bolton
For Whangarei, records showed temperatures drop as low as 2.5C every few years.
The last time 2.5C was recorded at Whangarei Airport was last year - an unusually early frost in May, 2014.
Air temperatures have dropped to freezing or thereabouts every decade or so, such as 0C at Whangarei Airport in July 1982 and -0.1C in June 1994.
Meanwhile, yesterday's thick frost was almost as good as snow for some excited Northland children. Joey Rapana of Taumatamakuku, near Moerewa, said his 7-year-old daughter Kailyn had always wanted to see snow.
She had seen the odd light dusting of frost before, but yesterday's blanket of ice over the paddocks and verges was the best she had seen so far.
"She's always wanted to see snow and this was the closest thing. She was really excited."
In fact, both father and daughter were so captivated by the frost, frozen puddles and ice crystals that they missed Kailyn's school bus.
Mr Rapana went home for his car instead and threw a bucket of water over the windscreen to get rid of the ice, only to end up with an even thicker layer.
Even the cat's water bowl had frozen over, he said.
