Tropical system lashes upper North Island with 100km/h winds and rain

Tropically charged gusts near 100km/h are starting to lash the upper North Island as the approaching system targets several regions.

Civil Defence officials are keeping a close watch, with southeast gales and heavy rain set to hit the north and several weather alerts already issued.

MetService meteorologist Alec Holden told the Herald the tropical low is expected to edge closer to the top of the country today.

“In this case, lucky for us, we have a high-pressure system to the southeast of the country, which is currently keeping that low-pressure system offshore and is very much slowing it down,” Holden said.

He said this means there will continue to be a lot of “quite notable easterly winds” anywhere north of Tauranga.

Holden said by tomorrow, the tropical system will be pushing against the high-pressure system, causing it to lose a “lot of its puff”.

“It’s really out of gas by the time it gets to us. So we’re not looking at anything particularly major occurring moving on into tomorrow,” he said.

“However, while it’s run out of puff, it does mean that it’s not moving particularly fast either.”

He said this will mean those in the Coromandel and Western Bay of Plenty regions will be “stuck with this feature on top of them” for tomorrow evening into Friday.

Simultaneously, Holden said a large cold front is forecast to exit the Tasman and move on to the far south of the South Island.

“What is notable about this is that it’s going to be quite intense in terms of rainfall amount. However, thankfully, it’s going to be pretty brief as this system moves up and over,” he said.

Severe weather alerts

The Far North District is under a strong wind watch until midnight.

Holden said so far, MetService has recorded gusts of 90km/h at several stations.

“It wouldn’t take too much more for those to get bumped up to some more damaging gusts,” he said.

A heavy rain watch is in place for the Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty west of Kawerau and Fiordland west of the Lakes.

These heavy rain watches are in place from tomorrow night into Friday morning.

Holden said there is still variability in the weather modelling, but said it remains likely that heavy rain watches may be expanded.

In the North Island, places north of Taupō are likely to be hit with a dose of rain tomorrow.

“Auckland in specific is looking at more or less occasional rain throughout the day, with it picking up a bit more in the evening,” Holden said.

“For those on the South Island, it is mainly the southern part of Westland stretching all the way down the spine of the island down to the tip of Fiordland. That’s where the majority of the rainfall is going to be over tomorrow.”

Kiwis in the north are also in for some muggier “gross” temperatures into Friday.

“When that low-pressure system really starts getting to grips with New Zealand, with it it is bringing some quite some very warm air with it,” Holden said.

The overnight temperatures moving into Friday are forecast to be about 20C for most areas north of the Coromandel.

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