Feeling Autumnal

Our third storm in 3 weeks blasted the North Island yesterday with gusts reaching 155km/h in Cape Reinga. In Auckland gales gusted to around 90km/h causing some damage.

Today will see heavy rain moving across the country but clearing from the north. Remember we have a special link for this storm which we're updating regularly - you can find it here.

The stormy weather over the past few weeks is classic La Nina weather. La Nina is when warmer waters form north of New Zealand. Warm water is basically the fuel for tropical storms and lately the Coral Sea, northern Tasman sea and western Pacific have all been creating big rain storms.

So what can we expect over the next week? Well the weekend isn't looking too bad actually.

That main rain band will clear the country during Saturday with a deep low moving over or near Southland - bringing strong winds there. Some heavy rain may linger around East Cape on Saturday too, but should clear by evening.

On Sunday the south west flow (which wont be a cold one) will ease further and showers should start to peter out in most places.

A large high pressure system - and I mean large, this sucker is about 1.5 times as wide as Australia - will move into the Tasman Sea.

Highs act as a "shut off valve" to significant rain bands and low pressure systems forming.

This high will sluggishly move onto New Zealand around Tuesday. This high could pose a serious problem for those in Queensland though.

A low in the Coral Sea is expected to develop this weekend and could drive in more torrential rain and gales to the storm ravaged state. The high in the Tasman Sea will slow its movement - and of course block it from reaching New Zealand.

The high will bring a change to southerlies or south easterlies next week here in New Zealand...as I said they aren't looking like they'll be cold however we'll certainly notice them at night.

The drier air will be cooler so it'll feel more Autumn like. Actually, I've been waiting to crack this one out for months now - it's going to feel more "Autumnal". There. I've said it for the first time this year. I love the word Autumnal.

My challenge for you today is try and get that into a conversation - without talking about this blog.

The shift to southerlies or south-easterlies in the South Island may knock the highs down a little though...not great news after such a miserable February for some.

So is the 7 day rain cycle over? Well you know what? I think it might be. At least for northern New Zealand. The long range data I'm looking at is more promising than it has been in about a month. That super large high may just do the trick at bringing some settled weather back to us...at least breaking our run of wet weekends. There's still that wild card though - the La Nina storms... it's highly possible another may come down. But if that high holds firm, which I think it will, then next week is looking mostly dry and sunny.

On a final note - many of you would've notice the MetService website has been crashing a lot lately. I've fielded quite a few frustrated emails from you. Yesterday I got in touch with MetService and they were extremely helpful at explaining the situation.

It's all explained here.

Russell Turner, who I spoke to, was genuinely trying to get the problems resolved quickly.

Top photo: Move over, summer - Autumn is here. Photo / Northern Advocate