Humid weather may cause frizzy hair

Cloudy skies and a rainbow in DannevirkePhoto / Christine McKay

After weeks of sou'westers affecting Auckland and many other parts of New Zealand we're finally in for a major weather pattern change - but are we jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire? This morning WeatherWatch.co.nz conducted an informal poll about today's weather. Overwhelmingly we were told the change to humid, cloudy, warm, weather and light winds was preferred over the sunnier but cooler sou'west flow so far this November.

This morning I put up a poll to see which extreme you prefer. Click here to cast your vote.

So the sou'westers slowly ended over Auckland this weekend and a nor'west flow has formed instead. Yesterday that nor'west flow, which heats up as it crosses land, gave a real boost to temperatures east of the main ranges. Tauranga made it in to the mid 20s while Napier and Hastings hit 30 degrees. Gisborne fell just short of 30.

In Auckland, Hamilton and Whangarei it's not so much the daytime temperatures that are jumping out at us, but more so the overnight lows. In WeatherWatch's independent 10 day forecast for Auckland City we've predicted lows around the 18 degree mark all week this week. The spread from Waikato and Bay of Plenty northwards will probably remain between 16 and 19 each night this week. Daytime highs will be in the low to mid 20s but coupled with 100 per cent at times the humidex calculator says outside it will feel more like the late 20s or early 30s...especially once you start walking and moving about.

That's the funny thing about high humidity. When you first step outside you think "Ahhh, this is pleasant"...but even a short trip to the mailbox or perhaps putting the rubbish out on the curb is enough to work up a sweat and make you feel like a much needed rest on the couch!

A good test to check how humid it is, is to fill up a glass with chilled water. If it quickly gets big drips of condensation on the outside you know that the air is also saturated - ie high humidity. The condensation can't be absorbed into the air so instead it drips down the glass into a rather yucky puddle of water.

The low responsible for the shift in the weather pattern is a big, lazy, one. I mentioned to a reporter at the Herald yesterday that the weather can sometimes be like humans in summer. It gets slow and sluggish and prefers to just lie around. Well that's exactly what this low is doing. It's not very aggressive but its large size mean it's tapping into the tropical, saturated, air well north of New Zealand. In fact it reaches further north than the Gold Coast, about par with Fiji. Not bad.

Most of this saturated, tropical, air will come down over northern and western parts of the North Island. MetService has issued a number of rain warnings from Mt Taranaki to the West Coast ranges. Keep up to date with them - because rain could certainly be heavy Tuesday and Wednesday in those western facing North Island ranges.

And ladies in northern New Zealand, you already probably know this, but this week the weather is going to be terrible for you...humidity in the late 90 per cent range, or even 100 per cent...and temperatures in the low to mid 20s....good luck de-frizzing your hair.

Philip Duncan

Pictured above: Cloudy skies and a rainbow in Dannevirke. Photo / Christine McKay