Cold stuff 'locked in'

The week ahead has a mixture of weather conditions but one word can be associated with most places "cold". While not as bitter and wintry as last week it's hardly going to be tropical as most places in the South Island struggle to climb much into the double digits and most of the North Island deals with a cold sou'easterly that doesn't seem to want to quit.

In fact, the weather for the working week shows winds from the southerly quarter dominating the North Island while a large high over the South Island "locks in" the cold stuff.

It looks as though we'll see nor'westers developing on the back of the high for start of Queens Birthday weekend but at the moment the long range forecast doesn't look too flash. My apologies for not providing a link to our Queens Birthday forecast last week but the wintry outbreak used up all my time! I'll go in to more depth about Queens Birthday weather later this week but be sure to add this link to your favourites  - it's our current Queens Birthday weekend weather forecast for all the main regions across New Zealand with a detailed 3 day forecast and daily highs for each region - plus a travel advisory to monitor the Desert Road and Cook Strait. We'll be updating the forecast daily, twice daily later in the week. At this stage I'm anticipating a cold snap starting late on Saturday and getting colder as the weekend progresses.

The weekend's rough weather finally brought Wellington back into the weather headlines. Since the stormy weather of October 2007 Wellington has been pretty low on the weather radar over the past year and a half. To be fair if the Cook Strait ferries hadn't been cancelled then maybe it wouldn't have had the news headlines that it got this weekend either. Damage was fairly minor across central New Zealand. The main headline grabber was 'travel plans affected by storm'.

Huge waves pounded the Wellington coastline while planes had to contend with gusts as high as 150km/h as they descended into Wellington. Luckily it was only gusting around 120km/h at the airport... I saw a few of those landings on One News and some bizarre part of my mind was jealous I wasn't sitting on that 737 as it came wobbling in to land. I often wonder if pilots LOVE that weather. The wind speed it self isn't dangerous for a plane...it's more about being blown off course or taking too long to get on to the runway, that's the risk. Surely the extra wind makes 'another day at work' a little more interesting. We all get that in our jobs...sometimes a bit of extra stress is actually hugely rewarding. If there are any pilots reading this I'd love to hear from you - is Wellington on a windy day more exciting? Or more stressful....a day that you'd wished you'd called in sick.

Oddly when I was a kid the normal turbulence scared the life out of me... we went to England in the 1980s and as I watched the wings bouncing up and down I started to panic. My Dad comforted me by saying "Boy I hope the wings don't snap off". It was his dry sense of humour that as a kid I didn't understand and I'm pretty sure the entire plane heard me scream...the flight attendant sure did. These days I love a good bouncy flight. Turbulence is just pot holes in the sky. It can be soothing if you approach the bumps with a different frame of mind. Much like how the bumps on a road can send kids to sleep when you're on long journeys. It's also fun if you're at the back of the plane and watch everyone's heads bounce and zig zag all at the same time...it's actually comical. Rew, a guy I work with at the Radio Network, says he finds it funny how there's always someone on a plane who goes "Ohhhh!!" out loud when the plane hits turbulence...it always seems to be a mother. He used to hate turbulence, but after flying through a couple of big storms he's realised that planes just glide through those strong winds and land safely.

Anyway back to earth and the week ahead does look a little chilly. As I said earlier winds from the southerly quarter will prevail over the North Island under mostly lower air pressure. In the South Island higher air pressure will see a general calming of conditions - but no real warming up. In fact we may see some pretty big frosts through inland areas. That high will give the North Island lighter winds on Wednesday and Thursday then slightly warmer nor'westers may see temperatures closer to 17 for some northern and eastern places by Friday... that sounds so tropical after the 12s and 13s of late. That nor'west change indicates an approaching front and some computer models are now speaking about a polar blast towards June 1. A great way to kick off winter but perhaps not a great way to celebrate our last national holiday for almost half a year.

The cold conditions this week will also secure the snow on our ski-fields. The early start to winter is definitely a good sign for them. I was looking at my firewood last night and wondering if I'll have enough to last me the length of winter. I think I'll be ok but the early start to the cold season wasn't something I was banking on. Who knows...maybe the early start to winter will mean an early start to spring.

Don't forget our Queens Birthday forecast for your holiday spot here and I'll talk about it in detail in my upcoming Herald blogs this Wednesday and Friday.

Surfers watch waves break over the breakwater at Wellington Airport yesterday. Photo / Peter Hodge