Rotorua residents left hot and bothered after fans sell out

High temperatures are causing discomfort across the country but if you're thinking about getting a fan - think again, they're few and far between in Rotorua.

Rotorua Warehouse store manager Sally Rison said the store had sold triple the usual number of fans so far this year.

"With such an early start to summer this year, fans were flying off the shelves from November and popularity continued right throughout the Christmas and New Year break.

"Due to such strong demand, we only have a small selection of stock remaining but we'll have more fans arriving in store in February," Rison said.

Stocks are depleted online with The Warehouse, Farmers, Kmart and Mitre 10 websites all showing most, if not all, of their fan stock was sold out.

Briscoes didn't respond to inquiries from the Rotorua Daily Post.

The hot weather is set to continue in Rotorua until next week. Tomorrow is forecast to reach 26C, Saturday will be 27C and Sunday and Monday are forecast to hit 26C.

The weather is definitely hotter than this time last year, according to MetService duty meteorologist Tui Mcinnes.

"If we compare it with last year we were seeing a lot of low to mid 20s," Mcinnes said.

The high temperatures are down to a high ridge pressure system sitting over the country.

"It has brought settled conditions with not much wind, a little bit of cloud, but because of the settled conditions there hasn't been any weather to change the air mass that's sitting over us," Mcinnes said.

"Because the air mass is moist, it means the overnight minimums are quite warm at the moment. That's what makes it quite hard to sleep at night - it's quite common with the warm air mass."

Trade Me spokesman Logan Mudge said the recent hot spell had seen thousands of Kiwis heading to Trade Me for fans.

"Last week we saw more than 24,000 searches in 10 days for fans, he said. "Sales are far exceeding last year when New Zealand's summer was a little less intense."