The hottest weeks of summer are yet to come

A beach in Raglan. Photo / Alan Gibson

I can never work out why on One News the anchors say "Welcome back" after an ad break. The implication is that WE have gone away from the TV and then returned while they sat there patiently in the studio playing ads to kill time. It is One News that has gone...not the viewers...so it should be us welcoming them back not the other way around. For some reason on Friday night I noticed this...and now it really bugs me! You see what happens when the weather goes quiet? I start focusing on weird things.

But life is full of weird things. The weather is no different. Summer has been spectacularly pathetic for many South Island centres this year but all of a sudden, at a time when perhaps the hottest weather has now been, summer has suddenly woken up...and it's all thanks to highs moving back over northern New Zealand again.

The flow of highs, or anticyclones, will this week bring a northerly flow over the South Island. This means temperatures in Christchurch and other inland eastern centres will be pushing 30 (probably 30+ inland) and it wouldn't be surprising if some South Island places see one of their hottest weeks of summer.

I still stand by my statement that Summer is on the way out for the South Island. The weather pattern this week looks a bit more like an early Autumn or Spring weather pattern as it's not exactly settled and calm. There will be a mixture of northerlies and southerlies, dry days and wet or showery ones. But for the most part it should be warmer and sunnier than it has been recently.

The highs over the North Island mean summer will definitely continue right through until March. High pressure systems are lined up to bring dry,

mainly settled, weather to much of the North Island for at least the next 10 days. Bad news for Northland farmers. Bad news for people who rely on water tanks. Great news for those who love the sun and going to the beach.

The weather patterns are continuing to show that northern New Zealand will see settled dry weather going into March while the lower two thirds of the country will be more "changeable".

So our ever changing summer continues to surprise us....even in this, our last 'official' week of summer.