Subtropical rainfall, dry spells and northwesterlies: NZ autumn weather outlook - The Front Page

This summer has been extra dry for large parts of Aotearoa.

This time last year the idea of a long, hot and dry summer was nothing but a dream as swathes of the country were battered by a cyclone and widespread flooding.

But as February draws to a close, so too does a “very parched summer”, where some New Zealand regions clocked up close to 60 dry days.

Science reporter Jamie Morton told the Herald’s daily news podcast, The Front Page, that regions across both the North Island and the north and east of the South Island had received half or below the normal rainfall for this month.

“With all this dryness, you’d expect widespread drought conditions across New Zealand. But the reason we haven’t seen that yet is because temperatures across February have been close to average.

“If we’d got the kind of heat that we got in those very scorching days in late January when we had temperatures in the high mid-30s, then obviously the picture would be looking a lot different right now.”

He said this has been caused by high pressure stopping “rain-makers” from coming through and a lot of northwesterly wind flows.

Heading into the cooler months, Morton said this El Nino weather pattern will roll on through most of the autumn before fizzing out by the middle of this year.

“We’ll expect to see these northwesterly winds continue for a while yet before fading away, so that’ll be some contribution to the dry conditions. But, as we move closer to winter, we can expect periods of subtropical rainfall coming in too and there’s an event like that on the cards for the second week of March.”

He told the podcast it was “coin toss” odds that Aotearoa would experience a La Nina this year.

“If we do go into La Nina, that’s not going to be very welcome news to Aucklanders, people on Bay of Plenty, [and] people on the East Coast who, you know, remember all too well just what happened after we had three years of La Nina last time.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about New Zealand’s recent climate patterns and what this year could hold weatherwise.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. This episode was presented by Katie Harris, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in social issues reporting who joined the Herald in 2020.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.