Autumn has arrived in Whanganui with a particularly cold beginning as temperatures dropped to an overnight low of 1.5C last week. Photo / Bevan Conley
Cooler temperatures and frosty mornings in Whanganui will be easing into warmer but potentially wetter days this week.
Metservice meteorologist Dan Corrigan said this week’s temperatures were more typical for the beginning of May.
“It has been notably cold and it’s looking to be more mild over the next week.”
Monday and Tuesday in Whanganui will bring settled weather with the off-chance of showers.
“There’ll be cloud coming in and out over the next couple of days.”
A low-pressure system is currently sitting in the Tasman Sea and is moving towards New Zealand.
On Wednesday it will hit the North Island.
“It’ll bring a decent period of steady rainfall as it goes over.”
There’ll be showers from mid-morning to early afternoon on Wednesday with conditions easing into more “sparse showery weather” and more gaps between the rainfall in the late evening.
“It’ll be a wet day on the whole on Wednesday.”
Showers will clear out on Thursday as the rain band moves further across the country.
The wind will also have less of a cool bite to it this week.
“The winds are starting out relatively light and northerly but then will turn around into westerlies going from Wednesday into Thursday overnight.
“We don’t have any cold southerlies this week.”
On Friday the weather will brighten up even more.
Corrigan said last week in Whanganui was an unusually cold week with temperatures dropping to 1.5C last Friday morning.
”Normally in May the minimum temperature at Whanganui airport is 9C on average, so those were quite a bit below that.”
But this week temperatures will bounce back up again.
“We’re looking at forecast highs of 19C for most of this week, and the overnight lows will be in the high single digits for the most part at around 8 to 9C.”
The coldest Whanganui temperature for May was -2C recorded on May 25, 1988.
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
Riders and spectators in Whanganui are anticipating the start of the last race.