Weather Watch: Bouncing temperatures

A spring day on Kohimarama Beach. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

Winter then spring now summer - part of a comment sent in to the Weather Watch Centre over the weekend talking about weather in Canterbury recently. Well it sums up the whole country really as temperatures quickly bounced over 20 degrees on Sunday. In total 18 main centres recorded highs of 20 degrees and over - including Auckland (recorded at Whenuapai). 24 was the high in Napier with a string of 21s and 22s along the east coast of the country. Even the deep south climbed to 19 degrees. Central Otago was also around the 20 degree mark...it was this region that only a few weeks ago had several highs of just zero degrees.

The warm weather was natures way of saying "winter is officially over". We're in for more warm weather this week too. Monday will see temperatures climbing into the mid-20s across eastern regions of the South Island as a classic spring nor'westers swings into place. Northern New Zealand is also likely to climb back into the late teen/early 20s mark under sunny and somewhat humid skies. Yesterday a rash of heat showers appeared in the afternoon across Waikato and Auckland. Nothing spectacular but certainly this weather is more typical of summer than early spring.

Mild nights are also on the way - quite a turn around from just a week ago when a surprise frost touched Auckland and more severe frosts spread across Canterbury. In fact Canterbury has had almost American/Canadian temperatures of late ... mornings have started at -4 with temperatures soaring into the early 20s by lunch. A climb of over 25 degrees in 6 hours is definitely significant for any time of the year in New Zealand.

So what is the weather pattern this week? Well we have the typical lows south of New Zealand, in the Southern Ocean, and also a weak and dying low north east of Northland. Out in the Tasman Sea there's a developing high pressure system. The high looks like it will be attracted to the North Island while the squash zone between the high in the Tasman and the lows in the south will create windy nor'westers over the South Island. That means warm weather for most of the week for most of the country. In fact, I'd go as far as saying hot weather. If it wasn't for that cold spell last week I'd be wondering if September was heading to the record books like August.

Don't forget the Weather Watch Centre brings you the Daily Highs first - so don't wait until the 6pm TV news - bookmark this link and check back around 4:30pm each day to see the national highs first.

Top: A spring day on Kohimarama Beach. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey