KEY POINTS:
The same high that brought temperatures into the mid 40s for southern Australia yesterday is the same high that's currently moving onto New Zealand - so does that mean we're in for temperatures in the 40s? Well it doesn't look likely but as that high advances further over New Zealand central and northern parts of the country could see daytime highs reaching the lower and possibly mid 30s.
This week the weather has cooled just a little after a stifling hot weekend for many last weekend...but the heat is now returning.
Today many parts of the country will climb into the mid to late 20s - with eastern areas of the North Island getting closer to 30.
Northern New Zealand, including Waikato, will bump up another notch or two over yesterday with the weekend looking set to maybe reach 30 in Waikato and Northland.
Speaking of Northland - Waitangi Day is upon us. Weather Watch is again the first to produce a long range forecast for the whole country - you can exclusively read it here.
So why is Australia so hot at the moment? And why is the lower South Island a little cooler when it's the same high affecting both places? It's actually very basic...the air around a high pressure system (or anticyclone) travels anti-clockwise. With the high slap bang in the middle of the Tasman Sea the air over eastern and southern Australia is coming from the north and north west - straight off the scorching hot Desert. Along the bottom of the high it's travelling in a westerly direction....over in the South Island it's the bottom right hand corner of the high that's brushing up against us...the air flow is more sou'westerly and combined with a low deep in the Southern Ocean a cooler pool of air is being sucked up. The North Island also has sou'westers but they're much warmer by the time they reach places like Auckland - and of course any westerly air flow in the east is hot one in Summer - which is why Gisborne almost reached 30 degrees yesterday.
Cooler, showery, weather is likely to return to the South Island's southern and eastern coastlines this weekend as unsettled weather patterns continue there - that high is just too far away near Australia to fight off these lows and cooler winds in the South Island. That should change next week as the high moves over central New Zealand.
The North Island, especially northern New Zealand, looks set to be hot and sunny for much of the weekend.
