Winter weather: Why the next few months will be wetter, warmer despite looming cold snaps – The Front Page

MetService says a widespread weather system is expected to bring strong winds and heavy rain throughout tomorrow and into the evening. Photo / NZME

A warmer, wetter winter is coming.

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) forecaster Chris Brandolino told The Front Page it’ll be a warmer than average winter as a whole.

“I’m using my words carefully because if you’ve seen the weather predictions for later this week and the weekend, there is gonna be a significant cold snap.

“That’s because we give a three-month outlook, not a three-day outlook. With a three-month outlook, there’s a lot of water to pass under that bridge, and this is just one weekend of 13 for the winter season.

“We’re expecting this pretty big cold snap Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and that may come with some snow to low levels ... But, unfortunately, if you’re a skier or a snow enthusiast, I don’t think that cold snap that we’re going to see is going to have much staying power and we’re probably gonna warm back up,” he said.

That’ll be the theme of the winter season – occasional cold snaps, dependent on the wind’s direction, which forecasters think will come mainly from the balmy north, instead of the chilly south.

“We’ll see more northeast and northwest winds than usual. This doesn’t mean every day, every week, every month of winter. It just means more than what is typical, and that will drive temperatures up. Also, our ocean temperatures are running warmer than average around New Zealand, and that means it’ll be hard to sustain prolonged cold snaps,” he said.

What “average” is for you depends where you call home, Brandolino said.

“The typical mean temperature for Auckland for the winter season is 11.6C ... our expectation is it’ll be higher than that. For Kaitāia it’s 12.5C, for Dunedin 7.3C, and for Christchurch 7.5C,” he said.

In other parts of the country, Hamilton is forecast to have a long-term average of 9.5C, with 8.5C at Masterton and 8.3C at Nelson.

Climate change doesn’t cause extreme weather, Brandolino said.

“It makes extreme weather events more frequent, more extreme and more likely... In reality, when we see warmer-than-average conditions, and you see the trend, that’s the concerning part because you see how these are becoming more common and more frequent.

“Unfortunately, a winter in 2025... when you compare it to a winter in 2090, that may actually be a cool winter,” he said.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about what the weather could be like in the next few months... and beyond.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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