'Tis the season, for one of Hawke's Bay's wettest Decembers

The storm over Napier on Christmas Day sent rain pelting down. Photo / Paul Taylor

Hawke's Bay will end the year with one of its wettest Decembers in a rare climate pattern that has even the weather forecasters wondering when the Bay will get one of its iconic summers.

Officially, it's easily the wettest Christmas-New Year holiday period in Hawke's Bay in more than five years.

Generally, the first week of the festive season in Hawke's Bay is marked by relatively dry weather, but not this year.

Notably, rainfall in the week December 20-27 at the Takapau Plains weather station was 89.2mm. It was 57.4mm for the same period in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 combined.

At the same station, December rainfall is three times the December average.

Rainfall across the region has been a stark contrast to last year's Christmas-New Year holiday period. And MetService duty meteorologist Tui McInnes was able to offer only a "should be" when asked if the beach would be the place to be over the last weekend of the year.

"Saturday should be quite a good beach day, Sunday could be quite a nice day.

"It's been the luck of the draw."

MetService is forecasting a warmer Saturday in Hawke's Bay, with temperatures up to 26C, but still with some showery weather, albeit more inland.

But on the coast things are looking up, with light winds and afternoon sea breezes, ahead of an even warmer Sunday with temperatures up to 28C. There's more of the same on Monday, with a bit of cloud and possible showers to the west on New Year's Day, heading towards 29C-30C in Napier and Hastings on Wednesday.

Among those noticing the rain was Fiesta of Lights promoter Te Rangi Huata, who by late Thursday had seen rain on seven of the 13 nights.

"This is the 20th anniversary," he said as the crowds wandered between the attractions and the raindrops at Showgrounds Hawke's Bay.

"We've never had it like that before."

According to Hawke's Bay Today daily weather figures, Hastings had 64.2mm of rain from December 20-27, and just 6.8mm over the same period last year. There had been 96.2mm this month, compared with the average all-of-December rainfall of 71mm.

The amount of rain at the MetService Takapau Plains station is more than three times that of the same week last year. At Hawke's Bay Airport north of Napier and at Mahia it has been about 2.5 times as much.