Weather: MetService reveals the hottest towns this weekend, and what weather is in store next week

The Waiho River in Westland at 8am today November 11 2024. The river was at 8.2m around 9am and rising, with the peak expected late morning. A local state of emergency has been declared in the southern ward of Westland District as flooding causes evacuations, road closures and slips. Photo / West Coast Regional Council Facebook https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=966628192158344&set=a.308399864647850

After a weekend where some Kiwis revelled in near 30C heat, and others were battling heavy rain warnings, MetService says much of the country is in for stable weather in the week ahead.

MetService meteorologist Ciaran Doolin told the Herald the front impacting the West Coast of the South Island had moved to the North Island and weakened.

“That’s basically going to move north, off the North Island tomorrow. And then there’ll be a period of south-westerlies over much of the country tomorrow and those will ease into the middle of the working week.”

He said midweek looks very settled, with light winds and mostly clear skies.

“As we head into Thursday there’s another front coming from the west, and that’s looking like it’s going to bring a fair amount of rain. There’s still a bit of uncertainty about just how much and exactly where, but certainly the West Coast of the South Island will get another pretty good dumping of rain.”

That system will move to the North Island on Friday, and with it a “substantial amount of rain”.

“East Coast of the North Island today, so Gisborne, Napier, they might see some pretty warm temperatures. 25C, 26C, not quite what we saw yesterday. But after that Monday for them is looking too reasonably warm.”

Across the rest of the country he said maximum temperatures in the early 20s were predicted.

Yesterday Ashburton reached 28.8C, he said, followed by Napier at 28.6C.

It was an unseasonably 🥵 day in eastern areas yesterday thanks to a combination of a warm airmass and a Föhn wind across the 🏔.

🔥 spots were Ashburton at 28.8 degrees and Napier at 28.6 degrees at 3pm.

Much milder afternoon maximum temps in eastern South Island today in the…

— MetService (@MetService) November 9, 2024

“Both around 3pm in the afternoon. And the reason for that was much of the country was in a warm humid air mass and then we had this northwesterly flow across along the mountain ranges and that generated what’s called a foehn wind, which is a warm dry wind which often affects eastern areas.”

Doolin said Sunday was milder, as the air mass moved North and the winds weren’t as favourable.

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