Weather Watch: A burning issue

It isn't too early to get sunburnt. Winter may have only just ended, but that's the reality of living in New Zealand. Photo / Northern Advocate

It was a wet and somewhat cold morning in Auckland on Saturday and so my best friend, Carla, suggested we go and see a movie. We went to St Lukes around noon to see Funny People with Adam Sandler...it was funny but my god it went for nearly 3 hours...by mid-afternoon we left the theatre and the sun was now out and the rain clouds had completely disappeared. It's funny how going to a movie always seems to do that...you always come out and the weather has changed or it's suddenly night time.

Anyway - she then wanted to go buy a dress for a Fashion Week party she was going to. I don't know what it is about being a male in a women's clothing store but it is horrible. There is no where to look, no where to stand... and you see the poor other men that females have dragged in looking just as lost and scared. Even worse when she went to try on clothes and asked me to hold her handbag. I spent 7 minutes trying to figure out the most masculine way of holding it... I failed.

I hate clothes shopping...the inner child in me gets cranky and my legs get instantly tired....and I moan...a lot.

But eventually my moaning won through and we left the shopping mall out in to the sunny Auckland afternoon.

Today the weather has improved even more...the heat is back and it really felt like spring had set in. Out in the sun it's actually hot. Important reminder - you can get sunburnt now. I'd say fair skinned people would start to burn in just 15 to 20 minutes in the sun during the middle of the day. It's weird thinking about sun tan lotion and sun burns so soon after winter but that's the reality of living in this country.

However despite the weekend's weather improvement we are in for a very unsettled week.

Thunderstorms are building out in the Tasman Sea - in fact in the first 12 hours of today our lightning tracker had already clocked about 16,000 strikes offshore. They could be widespread across those regions exposed to the west overnight tonight and in to tomorrow morning.

The thunderstorms currently stretch right up the Tasman Sea - quite a dramatic sight but too many times I've seen this before only to see them fizzle just before making landfall.

These thunderstorms mark the beginning of a very large area of low pressure moving in from the Tasman Sea. It's likely to bring another burst of heavy rain and heavy showers to northern and western regions on Monday and Tuesday and behind it will be the cold southerly change which last week brought snow to near Palmerston North, but this week coming up MetService believes it will be more of a Canterbury and Otago event.

We're heading in to the depths of the spring weather now - so hold on to your hats and watch out for those thunderstorms.

* www.twitter.com/philipduncan

Top: It isn't too early to get sunburnt. Winter may have only just ended, but that's the reality of living in New Zealand. Photo / Northern Advocate