Weather watch: Spring has arrived early

Spring may be coming early. Photo / Wairarapa Times-Age

It's unofficially official - I am declaring Spring has arrived early this year.

Yes, absolutely premature, but you can't argue with what is being delivered to us weather-wise and the past two weeks have been anything but winter, for most New Zealanders anyway.

Daytime highs in northern centres have been frequently hitting the 17 and 18 degree mark with hardly a frost in sight. In the South Island it's been a little chillier, as to be expected, but even Westport has taken the national high twice with 17 and 18 degrees in the past seven days.

And while the next couple of nights will be more winter-like with lows down to the freezing level thanks to an anticyclone moving in from the west conditions won't stay settled for long - with another spring-like system on the way.

It will arrive in the lower South Island on Friday bringing rain to the south west and strengthening winds from the northerly quarter for the whole east coast. By the weekend strong north to north west winds will move in to the North Island, with gales likely about central eastern areas.

A low is then likely to form in the Tasman Sea by the start of next week feeding down warm northerly winds over the North Island - hello grass growth. It's still several days out but I'm picking daytime highs will hit the 18 or 19 degree mark - and it's not crazy to think we may even hit the 20 degree mark in the North Island's north or east.

Much of next week looks set to be dominated by westerlies.

This forecast, coupled with the previous two to three weeks of weather, shows that spring is arriving early this year. I've spoken to folk at Federated Farmers who agree, certainly across the North Island.

This doesn't mean we're in for a warmer than average spring - it also doesn't mean we won't get any cold southerlies. But what it does tend to point towards is that there is a decreased chance of a wintry system setting in for more than a few days. Things appear to be speeding up and moving on.

Technically spring doesn't start for another one to two months but it's hard to argue with mother nature - and with weather like this, I can have my windows open all day and not feel cold, I can mow lawns and seven days later I need to mow them again and I can smell that warmth in the air - you know that smell right? The breeze just has that springish odour to it.

As I said, this doesn't negate the chances of cold blasts in spring - we often see snow storms as late as October and November. But it does signify that perhaps Augusts looks likely to be another warm month overall.

Finally, I forgot to post this in my Air Turbulence blog the other day - it's a short video I uploaded to YouTube of the giant A380 Airbus flying directly over me while on a photo shoot at Auckland International Airport.

I was directly under the flight path in a restricted area (thanks to an airport security escort). None of us expected the plane to come in and needless to say it was a very close call (or at least felt like it).

Follow me on twitter - twitter.com/philipduncan