Hawke's Bay hits 27 degrees as New Zealand eyes a fine Easter

Sugar Loaf, vines, and clouds near Taradale on a warm early-autumn day in Hawke's Bay. Photo / Paul Taylor

Hawke's Bay was one of the warmest places to be in New Zealand as temperatures moved into the higher 20s on Wednesday.

Temperatures peaked at almost 27C mid-afternoon in Napier, although the day was a mixture of sunny and cloudy conditions with a breeze.

In both Napier and Hastings the temperature had been over 25C since about 10am. It had also reached 25C in Wairoa by early afternoon, but the peak in Dannevirke had been about 22C.

After several weeks of regular severe weather or heavy rainfall warnings, MetService on Wednesday had no warnings for the eastern regions of the North Island, apart from one for heavy rain in the Tararua Ranges.

There's an outlook of mainly fine weather towards the four-day Easter holiday break and start to the school holidays at the end of next week.

A MetService meteorologist said there had also been winds on the Southern Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa Coast, peaking at Cape Turnagain (70km southeast of Dannevirke and the Hawke's Bay-Wairarapa boundary marker near Herbertville) with a gust of 49 knots (90.7km/h) early in the afternoon and 54 knots (100km/h) at Castlepoint 4-5 hours earlier.

Meanwhile, MetService is following the movements of Tropical cyclone FILI in the southwest Pacific, although on Wednesday it was forming to the west of New Caledonia, moving southeast and likely to start to weaken south of New Caledonia on Friday.

Some sources said it could reach New Zealand about next Wednesday, but MetService was not expecting it to impact New Zealand, although the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in Wellington would take over warning responsibilities if FILI moved out of the tropics.