A bit unseasonal - a warm week for Hawke’s Bay

Fishing by numbers - off the rocks in Napier, where first-week-of-June temperatures were 19C on Monday morning. Photo / Connull Lang

A forecast for unseasonally-warm King’s Birthday weather proved to be on the mark for Hawke’s Bay with temperatures reaching 20 degrees Celsius on Monday, and more warmth is on the menu for the week ahead too.

According to the MetService website the Napier temperature, reached 20.3C about 1pm, about 7C above the city’s average June maximum.

Having passed 19C on Sunday, the King’s Birthday temperature in Napier had climbed quickly from about 9C at 7am to 15C just after 8am, and about 10am it was the warmest in the country at 18.1C, on a range of almost 20C across the country at the time, down to the lowest on the network of cities and towns, at Twizel, in Canterbury, where it had been -1C about 9.30am.

In Wairoa, the temperature rose from about 13C mid-morning to 20.5C before 1pm, in Hastings it was just over 16C, rising to a daily maximum of 19.9C about 1pm, and in the southern extremity of Dannevirke it was 13-14C mid-to-late morning.

There was a forecast for possibly some showers into the evening, but otherwise no forecast of any rain before Thursday.

With a forecast of large ocean swells and waves up to nine metres at the Chatham Islands, about 740km southeast of Napier, some heavy seas, but much less severe, were being forecast for the coast of the lower North Island, but not as far as the Hawke’s Bay coast.

But conditions in Cook Strait, deteriorating with southerly gales causing moderate to heavy seas, resulted in the cancellation of Interisland ferry the Kaitaki’s Monday-Tuesday overnight sailings, from Wellington departing at 8.30pm and from Picton departing at 2.30am.

Some high winds were also forecast for the stretch of Wairarapa coastline, but there were no adverse weather warnings or watch notices.

The long-range forecast for this weekend is looking good, with sun and highs of 17 and 18C from Sunday to Thursday in Napier.