Wet weekend to interrupt dry spell

Photo / Herald on Sunday

I just learnt a valuable lesson...always save your work as you go. I was just spell checking my blog when we had a power cut that lasted about 1 second...it wasn't even long enough to turn my Sky decoder off...but it was long enough to wipe the blog I had just written and was currently spell checking. I took a big deep breath in, a big gulp of coke zero (I'm not drinking wine for a week as my 'time to lose my winter weight' campaign begins) and then stuffed my face full of cheese and crackers instead while I waited for the computer to painfully, slowly, reboot. When I opened up internet explorer it told me there had been an unexpected shut down and would I like to start when I had left off? "YES!!!"...it opened my email page up and then my smile disappeared as the page opened blank.

If you can subtly pick up an angry "I'm in a hurry to get to the point because I've already written all of this"' tone then you now know why.

Deep breath Phil. Another cracker with cheese. And a coke zero. (of course eating all the cheese is a bit like someone buying a burger and fries and asking for 'no salt on the fries' to be healthy).

To add insult to injury my day at work was pretty hectic and I when I finally left for the day I was thinking about how much I was looking forward to writing my blog, then putting on Seinfeld while sitting on the couch in front of the fire. Instead I stared at my petrol light the whole way home paranoid I'd be "that guy" on Time Saver Traffic who's car has blocked the fast lane of the nor'western motorway. What is it about the petrol light coming on that keeps you looking down at it? It's not like it does anything else. After a painfully long drive home watching that little orange light I finally decided the best way to remove the stress of the day was to go for a run. (Don't worry, my long winded vent is almost done and we'll get on to the weather).

While on my run I thought back to a week ago when a sunny evening with a no wind made me go for an extra long run. That week I saw one of those mini-buses parked up and there was a piece of cardboard stuck under the windscreen wiper. I figured it was a For Sale sign but instead someone had written "Move your F**KEN bus from blocking my view or else"...running and laughing is never easy to do. I'm not sure what was funnier - that someone had actually taken the time to write that and stick it up, or reaction of the poor owner of the bus walking out and finding it. I love kiwis...we're usually shy but when we speak we speak straight from the heart, no messing around. Remembering that made all my stress melt away. Thank you angry person. You out-angered me and that made me feel better about myself.

Anyway - to the weather - and...oh hold on...let me just save this first....

...ok, done. So back to the weather, after my evening's run my dog, Harry, was racing around the front lawn. When he came back inside the house something finally dawned on me - no muddy paw prints! After a walk around the garden I realised that the weeks of sun and wind across Auckland had dried the garden and lawn out to the point that muddy patches were now cracking. While the moisture is only just under the surface it is a sign that the weather patterns have changed. And it's not just Auckland - apart from the West Coast most other regions are drying out quickly too.

But that may be all about to change with a rain band moving in from the west and north over the next few days. The rain may be heavy along the West Coast and in Northland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and East Cape. A sub-tropical low will form on Friday too and scoot down the east coast past Gisborne then quickly deepen. This may drive in strong winds to the east coast and rain or showers during the weekend. So everyone's in for some rain or showers between Thursday and Monday, on all sides of the country.

Next week we revert back to highs north of New Zealand and lows south of us - putting the nation smack bang in the squeeze zone again. That means more westerlies and warmer weather for the east, especially Canterbury. With El Nino slowly forming the early dry weather could be of concern. El Ninos bring more westerlies and therefore drier weather to the east of both islands - and let's be honest, they've had more than enough droughts over the past few years. Fingers cross El Nino is weak in our part of the world...but either way, if I was a farmer I'd be thinking about dealing with another hot, dry, summer.

Well...my venting is over now...I apologise for spending half of my blog ranting about something other than weather, but just like the seasons it's good to have a change. Now let me save this before I spell check again.

Read more of Phil's rants on Twitter (www.twitter.com/philipduncan)

Pictured above: The country is drying out, but expect some rain this weekend. Photo / Herald on Sunday