Wet and warm weather this week for everyone

This is my favourite time of the year weatherwise. Not only does our weather get all fired up but it's also the start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season. There's something about the potential size of them, the massive and incredibly interesting media coverage that follows them and of course the fear that follows their predicted paths. I think I mentioned last year in a blog I wrote that Hurricane Katrina was the reason I launched the Weather Watch Centre. It was the fascination of watching one of the biggest storms ever recorded on the planet grow and head into the Gulf of Mexico - and seeing how captivated people were watching it. You can't deny that despite the sometimes horrific human toll these catastrophic storms create they can still be incredibly mesmerising.

I want to cover both the Atlantic Hurricane Season and this weeks low affecting New Zealand, but first - funny weather bloopers.

I felt sorry for Wendy Petrie getting caught giving a 'fist pump' on camera the other evening...it wasn't her fault the camera was still showing a live feed. As someone who started off behind the microphone for radio stations across the North Island I know how easy it is to slip up live. In my very first on-air job I worked as a breakfast announcer for a radio station that no longer exists in Taumarunui. I didn't see eye to eye with my boss at the time and because we were such a small station and understaffed he used to go out and about and do live crosses on Saturday mornings. He had just finished his report when I thought I had kicked off the music and turned my mic off, when I said something along the lines of what an idiot he was out loud to myself...and I probably didn't say it briefly as that either...problem was, the microphone was most definitely still on. It wasn't a career ender and I'm sure the audience thought it was hilarious.

Anyway - inspired by NZHerald.co.nz's Top 10 TV presenter goofs I yesterday managed to justify a an entire mornings work researching funny weather bloopers online. I found 10 which I think are fantastic... and they're all weather related. You can see the top 10 Weather Bloopers here.

NZ weather

Weather in New Zealand this week looks wet and warm. Overnight lows are going to be well up on this time last week - even earlier this week when parts of the North and South Island were nearing - 10 degrees. Double digit lows for northern New Zealand for the next few nights and, starting today, highs in the mid to late teens for northern centres. A welcome relief for many I'm sure after the bitterly cold start to winter.

The low bringing the warmer northerlies and heavy rain is big, slow, and has plenty more rain waiting in the wings. The low should cross New Zealand at the end of the week and into the weekend so expect another band of rain fed by northerlies into western and northern facing regions of both islands. Of course the warmer northerlies will eventually give way to colder weather.... Southerlies in fact, and they're likely to kick in on Saturday in the far south and head north next week. It's not a polar blast but is looking chilly especially for southern and eastern areas (opposite to the areas getting the warmest, wettest, weather from this system).

MetService are watching this rain event closely and are indicating in their severe weather outlook that rain warnings may be likely between Thursday and Saturday especially in places like Bay of Plenty and the Nelson region, where at the time of writing this blog they had "moderate" confidence of heavy rain.

Big lows like this can be difficult to forecast for...mainly because they're so slow and spread over such a huge area...fronts come and go before they even reach New Zealand.

Hurricane season

So the hurricane season has kicked off in America but it's early days yet. Last year I was overwhelmed by the huge interest in these tropical storms - especially considering they're so far away from us. But they can impact our lives...many of us know people in the United States and of course with so many oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico the storms can affect oil production.

However it's quite possibly the amazing media coverage that's so thrilling to watch. Hurricanes capture audiences in ways that other news stories don't. Watching a hurricane head towards land is like the weather equivalent of watching a white Bronco flee down a highway... nothing's really happening but somehow you can't stop watching.

I'll track all the big Atlantic hurricanes right here...but like I said, it's really August and September when the real action is likely to begin.

Philip Duncan

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