Hawke’s Bay weather: Forecasters predict 33C scorcher as hot days and humid nights beckon

Walkers revel in the sun on Te Mata Peak on Monday. Photo / Warren Buckland

Sticky nights and sweltering days beckon for Hawke’s Bay, as the region basks in glorious sunshine.

Temperatures in Napier and Hastings are tipped to touch 30C, and beyond, over the next week, perhaps even getting as high as 33C on Sunday.

The hot weather starts in earnest tomorrow, when Hastings will be hot in the day time and Napier in the evening.

“The temperature will climb to about 30C in Hastings and lead into a pretty warm night,” MetService meteorologist John Law said.

“As we move from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, the temperature will perhaps not be a lot lower in Napier than 18C, so another really warm, muggy night through there.

“All in all, very much a settled story thanks to that large area of high pressure.”

The MetService estimates Hastings will bake under 33C on Sunday which, while hot, is still a fair bit short of any all-time high.

“I’ve got January temps here and the highest I can see for Napier is 36.9 so, if we get to 33, that won’t even get into the top-five [hottest January days],” Law said.

“It’s a classic set up, with a bit of north-westerly [wind] coming through towards the end of the week to add an extra couple of degrees.”

The weather has been welcomed by Hawke’s Bay Cricket Association chief executive Craig Findlay, who is staging the region’s annual age-group cricket camps.

The camps have showcased the skills of future international players such as Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Ben Stokes, Trent Boult, Sophie Devine and Amelia Kerr since their inception in 1979, as well as being a tourism and hospitality boon.

The 2024 camps started on January 4 and run for 22 days.

Findlay jokingly threatened to resign last year, after wet weather saw the abandonment of several matches and a host of others transferred at short notice.

Instead of running a cricket tournament, he spent three weeks taking covers off and on sodden pitches.

This time around, a whopping 206 teams, from around the country, have converged on Hawke’s Bay for this year’s event, which comprises 549 games across 12 grades and 15 venues and incorporates 2440 players and their families.

Law says “it’s a very different weather story” from what greeted the cricketers at last year’s event.

That’s, in part, to a developing El Nino weather system.

“It’s still not quite a classic [El Nino],” Law said.

“It tends to be, with this high pressure, more of a westerly, so it still doesn’t have all the hallmarks of a classic.

“But it’s more that kind of idea of generally dryer, warmer conditions on that eastern side [of the country] as you would expect.”