Whanganui weather ‘pretty nice’ for first week of school holidays

A wet weekend makes way for a "pretty nice" first week of school holidays. Photo / Bevan Conley

After a weekend of rain, Whanganui can expect a week with warmer-than-average temperatures, a couple of showers and a light northeasterly wind as the school holidays begin.

Inland Whanganui, Rangitīkei and South Taranaki faced heavy rain watches heading into the weekend as the country was battered by heavy rain and thunderstorms.

“For Saturday and Sunday, we got 22.8 millimetres across the two days, which was about a fifth of the rainfall for all of June,” MetService meteorologist Silvia Martino said.

However, this week brings a “pretty nice” forecast, Martino said.

Whanganui is forecast to have some showers on Monday evening and Thursday but that is expected to be the total of the week’s rainfall.

“It’s looking to get cloudy later on Wednesday and then rain will be coming in on Thursday, but it is from the northeast, so for people towards the coast, it will be pretty sheltered, although inland Whanganui does have a low risk of heavy rain,” Martino said.

“That’s clearing off on Friday so the conditions should be improving again.”

Even on the days with showers, the conditions are supposed to be only partly cloudy, with clear skies expected on Tuesday.

The temperatures through the week are forecast to be “quite nice”, exceeding average temperatures for this time of year.

Martino said the lowest maximum forecast was 16C on Tuesday, but otherwise the temperatures should settle at 17C or 18C and look to get up to 20C on Friday, but if it does manage to get up to that 20C, it will be 6C warmer than average.

The forecast low temperatures are 7C on Tuesday, 4C on Wednesday, 9C on Thursday, and increasing to double digits on Friday.

“With that northeasterly air, it will be a bit warmer overnight.”

The wind was expected to pick up through the week but Martino said it would be “nothing too strong”, just more noticeable.

Olivia Reid is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.