Chad Ogilvy and Lisa Feaver's "brews by the beach" Bedford van, Sandbank, will be back at Bay Oval this weekend, making the most of the hot weather and big crowds. Photo / George Novak
Chad Ogilvy and Lisa Feaver's "brews by the beach" Bedford van, Sandbank, will be back at Bay Oval this weekend, making the most of the hot weather and big crowds. Photo / George Novak
A heatwave is coming this long weekend and it's here to stay until early next week.
The timing could not be better with an action-packed few days in store for the Bay, from back-to-back ODI cricket matches to the popular annual reggae festival, One Love.
MetService meteorologist Rob Kerr toldthe Bay of Plenty Times Weekend yesterdaythat a dry and warm weekend was forecast.
Today will see a maximum temperature of 26C, a mainly fine day with a little bit of cloud around this morning and maybe also this evening.
Kerr said tomorrow will be partly cloudly with a maximum of 27C, while Monday "could hit that magic 30C".
Tuesday's max temperature could drop, but only slightly, to 29C. And a high of 27C is forecast for Wednesday.
The nights will also be warmer, Kerr said, with the overnight minimum staying above 20C on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
"It's quite humid so what happens, it doesn't really allow the air to cool very much," he said. "It's going to make sleeping probably a little bit uncomfortable."
There will also not be much wind around this weekend, Kerr said, until maybe some sea breezes get going in the afternoon.
Not much wind would be welcome news for Nevan Lancaster, owner of Mt Cats and Yaks at Pilot Bay in Mount Maunganui.
"It all depends on that westerly wind for Pilot Bay, we've had a lot of westerlies," he said yesterday.
"It's a bit different in Pilot Bay, it gets sort of concentrated in here."
Lancaster said it had been a pretty quiet summer so far for his business.
"I'm fingers crossed because we have had such a lot of wind, it would be very nice not to have any wind.
"It would be lovely actually if we can get three decent days in. That would hopefully make up for the quiet New Year's and the 20-odd days of wind that we've had."
This year had seen a lot more sailors than previous years, he said, as well as kayakers.
"But the paddle boarding, because of the wind, has been very quiet. Strong wind is terrible for paddle boarding."
The high temperatures that are forecast are also good news for ice-cream sellers, like Tay Street Store.
Steph Meaden, who owns the store with her husband, Sam, said on a super busy summer weekend day like today, they can go through 400 to 500 ice-creams.
"It's good fun. There's a lot of good energy in there when there's queues out the door," she said.
"We'll go through a lot of ice-cream this weekend … real fruit ice-cream has been really popular. We've got a coconut ice-cream, so a lot of people are coming in for that option as well."
Paige Parnell (left) and Marie Mullerova from Tay Street Store will be selling plenty of ice creams this long weekend. Photo / Andrew Warner
Meanwhile, Chad Ogilvy and Lisa Feaver will be temporarily swapping wave watching at Papamoa Domain for cricket at Bay Oval this long weekend.
Their "brews by the beach" Bedford van, Sandbank, has been involved in every major cricket match over the past couple of years at Bay Oval.
"It's great to have such a big event hit our small town," Ogilvy said this week.
