Wet today but sun will shine on Santa

A wet muggy day today gives way to a warm clear Sunday - just the ticket for the annual Farmers Santa Parade.

MetService meteorologist Claire Flynn said much of the North Island would get rain today.

Aucklanders would find it difficult to find a place nearby that was fine, she said.

"The rain in the rest of the North Island should gradually clear from afternoon, clearing from the south first.

"But the rain in Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Auckland, Northland and Coromandel is looking like it won't clear until overnight [tonight]."

She said tomorrow was expected to be fine for most of the country.

WeatherWatch analyst Phil Duncan said the North Island's humid weather was caused by high and low pressure systems to the east and west of New Zealand pulling down moist, warm air from Fiji.

"As the high slowly tracks away from New Zealand over the next day and a half into Sunday, the humidity goes away with it, so it is going to clear up," he said.

But it won't be gone for long.

"There's another system coming in next week which is going to pull down more subtropical air."

And although the World Meteorological Organisation said the global average surface temperature in 2015 is likely to be the warmest on record, because of a combination of a strong El Nino and global warming, Niwa principal climate scientist Dr Brett Mullan said that New Zealand was "nowhere near its warmest on record".

This was because the country's weather behaved differently to the global average because of El Nino producing more southerlies and south- westerlies.

During the week, Ms Flynn said Napier came close to hitting its November record of 31.8C, with a high temperature of 31C.

Hastings was the hottest place, however, with a high of 31.7C - still a few degrees short of its record of 33C.

Meanwhile, down south yesterday, Wanaka hit its previous record for wind gusts of 93km/h, with gusts causing chaos in Southland and causing flights to be delayed or cancelled in and out of Wellington Airport.

• Auckland has rain today easing to showers in the evening with a 23C high. Tomorrow brings long fine spells with light winds and a 22C high.