Weather watch: Scariest Halloween as fronts joined for perfect storm

The movie <i>The Perfect Storm</i> was based on the Halloween Storm. Photo / Supplied

Nineteen years ago today a storm, named the Halloween Storm or, as you may know it, "The Perfect Storm" - made famous by a book and a movie - slammed into the eastern United States and Canada.

On a night celebrated by the young as being the scariest night of the year the Halloween Storm of 1991 really was incredibly frightening. An aggressive cold front departing the east coast of the United States deepened over the Atlantic and swallowed the remnants of Hurricane Grace, which was heading north up the Atlantic.

A new hurricane was formed but was never named to avoid confusion (the public and media may not have realised these storms had absorbed into one giant low so the storm wasn't named). To this day it's also known as the No Name storm.

It created waves over 30m high (that's 11m higher than the tail of a 747) and killed six people at sea on the Andrea Gail, the commercial fishing boat that featured in the movie The Perfect Storm.

The Halloween storm of 1991 cost US$208 million ($275 million) at the time and killed 12 people.

Back here in New Zealand and the weather is anything but frightening as spring conditions ease - perhaps a sign we're slipping into summer mode.

Northland resident Paul Herbert, of The Radio Network in Whangarei, said the weather has been "magic" lately in the north with the ground drying out after the wet winter. Paul said it had been absolutely superb for heading to the beach and enjoying the outdoors but wondered if they were now heading into a dry spell.

"It was November last year when we started slipping into drought," he told Country99TV.

This week northern New Zealand has had a constant easterly flow, a sure sign of the La Nina conditions now setting in.

The long-range climate prediction for the summer suggests an increase in sub-tropical lows - so hopefully Northland won't see a repeat of last year's drought.

However, with our nation being so narrow it only takes one large area of high pressure to hold firm for a month and water tanks can run low, as they did last year on Paul's lifestyle farm.