Weather Watch: One man's trash is another man's treasure

Northland has received some rain in the past 24 hours but as we expected it was certainly no drought breaker. Photo / Christine Cornege

What is one man's trash is another man's treasure...and that is so true with the current weather. While sunny, or dry, weather gave most farmers in the north a miserable weekend holidaymakers made the most of it sunbathing, swimming and relaxing on our beaches.

Forget Autumn... the weather seems to be stuck in summer mode in the north while it's winter mode in the south. During the weekend frosts made their first real presence of the year with temperatures dipping below - 2 for some parts of Southland, Otago and inland Canterbury. Highs in the deep south struggled to even make the teens.

In the North Island it's been quite the opposite with highs reaching the mid 20s and with higher humidity it's felt more like the middle of January. Auckland's east coast beaches were packed yesterday with not only people enjoying the sun on land but spending big long deeps in the sea, which for many places is warmer now than it was during the peak of the summer holidays.

Actually it's probably fair to say that it's wintry at the moment for those in the South Island up to Kaikoura, then from Marlborough and Nelson up to Taranaki/Central Plateau it's Autumn...and from there northwards it's still summer.

The temperatures today, Tuesday, are certainly very different from north to south. As of 1pm there were a string of 20s and 21s in the north, 14s to 17s in the middle and 10s and 11s in the south.

The only region bucking their current local trend is the West Coast with temperatures in the late teens this afternoon thanks to a northerly.

Northland has received some rain in the past 24 hours but as we expected it was certainly no drought breaker. It will give isolated communities a top up of water but other places recorded nothing or only a few mms.

However the centre of the weak low will cross northern parts of Northland on Tuesday afternoon and night and this will bring unstable conditions which equals heavy, but isolated, downpours...maybe even the odd rumble of thunder in the east. The good news is that at this stage it is looking likely to bring some heavy showers to places that missed out on Monday.

Like I say, this is not the silver bullet that farmers need... and the next 10 days look dry again. But, there is hope. The weather patterns are certainly showing signs of changing and we're seeing more lows and weaker highs so fingers crossed it's just a downhill slide to the wet stuff. Also, with conditions still fairly warm over two thirds of the nation it should mean rapid grass growth - especially in the driest regions which are mainly in the northern half of the North Island.