The Country 08/08/25: Phil Duncan talks to Jamie Mackay

Monday’s weatherman joins us on a Friday to talk about the prospect of a La Nina spring - wet and warm.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We missed them on Monday, but we always get our
man because I had to chat Chris Brandolino on Monday
about NIWA. Oops. The art is formally known as Newa
these days. Earth Sciences New Zealand updated three month outlock,
so I've moved pell to Friday Pelt. Do you concur
with what your close friends at NIWA Earth Sciences New
Zealand are saying.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well to do with Larnina. I mean, you've got to
remember that for twelve months last year we went through
this talking about Larnina and then it never happened. So
you've got a place just a little bit of questioning
on it. But to be honest with you, there are
some signs that we are seeing a bit of a
shift to Larnin and you just have to look at
the weather maps to see. There's a lot of rain
up in the tropics around the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea,

(00:42):
Banawatu so north to northwest of New Zealand. Up in
the tropics, a lot of rain around there, and on
top of that quite a series of low pressure zones.
Now they're not really affecting New Zealand, but they are
forming so yes in one area. I do tend to
agree that we are heading towards Larnini conditions, but it's
saying that we had twelve months last year of Meia

(01:03):
was saying every month, my Nina's coming, Lamina's coming, and
it never happened. So it's just important to remember that
we're halfway between the equator and Tartan.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Newa or Earth Sciences. New Zealand. God knows why they
changed their name calling wet and warm for carving and
lambing will take the warm, but not so much the wet,
but increasing risk of tropical and subtropical systems hitting New Zealand,
raising the likelihood of heavy rain and flooding in the
north and east of the North Island and areas like Tasman.

(01:33):
So that's not really what we want to hear. Fil No.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
I mean like, you'd be a rich person if you
were accurate in New Zealand at forecasting beyond a couple
of weeks. So it's it's like, yeah, it sounds alarming,
but remember we had twelve months of this last year
of warning of all this stuff, so it's until it forms,
there's very little to talk about, but there is a
there is some chatter the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia,
which is a government agency. They don't do they're not commercial.

(01:58):
They're saying that La Nina is possibly on the cards,
but they don't see anything forming this year and if
it does tend to form, it may happen around December.
So they're taking a pretty sort of slow view of it.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Let's narrow our focus to the next week, Phil. I
think there's certainly a cold front hitting of the South
Island as we speak, but we are going to get
a big high early next week, which will be good.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah. From a nation wide point of view, the next
week coming up may be the coldest of the year
so far because the polar air boundary goes right up
to the far North and sits there for about a week.
Usually that's like a wave crashing on a beach and
sitting at its highest point before retreating and sitting there
for way too long. So this cold air is going
to hang around. But it doesn't mean that some of

(02:43):
you in the South Island will have the coldest week
of the year. Just mean on a national point of view,
it looks that way, but places like Otago may have
a bit of a breeze blowing through that might not
be overly warm, but it does mean your overnight temperatures
aren't as brutal as they could be. But we've seen
widespread frost coming in this week end nex week as well,
potentially right up to the winterless North.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Well, if you're going to get them early August, should
I say is not a bad time to have him.
Phil Duncan, thank you very much for your time. I'd say,
enjoy your weekend, but I know you're a weather man,
so weekends, weekdays, they're all the same to you. No
rest for the work of CFLs.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Is always a high pressures a weather man's free.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
You enjoy the high, and I'm talking about the barometric
high there, philp Any of the clarifications later