Heading into in the second week of September, New Zealand’s early spring weather continues. Monday, September 9, kicks off with yet more windy westerlies, which will be strong and gusty and may even reach severe gale in some places, south of the lower North Island.
Heavy rain on the West Coast and rain or showers for many other western and southern areas. Tuesday is similar, although it becomes colder in the South Island with snow levels lowering for a time around the mountains and ranges. Wednesday may be another windy day for some of you in the south of the country.
After more than two weeks of strong winds coming from the west these conditions will finally ease by late next week. But the weather pattern beyond this is starting to look messy.
As we’ve been saying for a number of months now, we’re in a “neutral” season and while there is a lot of chatter going on about a possible La Niña, that doesn’t mean that our weather here in New Zealand is going to be affected yet. (And it’s possible La Niña may still not even officially be declared this year.)
The Southern Ocean has been especially stormy this year, creating one major storm after the other. Storms in late winter/early spring are normal, but this year it is the frequent nature of so many deep air pressure lows that’s made things different.
Not only that, but many of these storms and low-pressure zones have been brushing the lower part of NZ – they haven’t all been well south down towards Antarctica. In fact next week some of the severe gales around NZ are due to more deep low pressure just south of Stewart Island.
I’ve said a few times that winter this year was defined by the word “big”. We had big high-pressure zones and big low-pressure zones and many of them lasted for two weeks in the NZ area at a time.
Now that we’re going through September we are still seeing big systems, perhaps not lingering as long as they did in the depths of winter, but they are still large and we are seeing large lows around Australia and around New Zealand coming up too – whether they hit us is a different question, but they are likely to be around.
Earlier this week, WeatherWatch issued our September ClimateWatch update where we track things like La Niña and temperature trends and rainfall trends for the month ahead. The month of September is looking generally warmer than average but with an increased risk of a snowstorm or frost event this year, and while that’s normal most springs, the chance of one being a strong one is a little elevated due to the storms south of New Zealand.
Spring may be a bit warmer than average but could still bring some stormy and severe weather at times, which hasn’t always been the case in recent years.
