The Country 16/09/25: Phil Duncan talks to Jamie Mackay

Monday’s weather man on when is September going to calm the farm? After a weekend of intense winds across New Zealand, brighter skies and warmer temperatures are forecast for the early part of this week. The reprieve will be short-lived, however, as winds strengthen and wet weather spreads across the country from Wednesday.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
He's our resident Monday weather expert on the country. We
missed him use today, were going to get him on
a Tuesday. Phil Duncan, I've got two words for you.
In fact, it's more than two, it's probably five or six.
September can be a cruel mistress.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, it's sure can, and especially when it's a textbook September,
which we've got at the moment, where you know, weather
is driven through these windy westerlies. We've got high pressure
north of New Zealand, storms south of US, and the
squash zone is smack dang right over the country with
these westerly driven conditions and really for the rest of September,

(00:36):
there is no end in sight. The weather pattern we're
in right now is the same one we've got in
two weeks time, where we see more of these highs
just to the north of the country. Some of them
might briefly come in over US, but overall, yeah, a
lot of weather being driven from south of Australia, south
of New Zealand, and that's why temperatures are down and
why we're seeing plenty of West coast rain coming up

(00:58):
over the next week and a half.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
We just want a mother nature to calm the farm,
but she ain't going to do it well. As we
head into October, will this kind of wind, wet and
windy pattern continue. And that's obviously for the south and
the west, but I know parts of the East Coast,
for instance, are getting very dry.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
What we need is high pressure to start moving southwards
at the moment as we transition from winter to summer.
There is a moment during spring where these highs tend
to go north of New Zealand, and that's why we
get all these westerly is blowing through. So usually as
we go through October, those highs start to come further
back down into New Zealand. That gives us more pauses.

(01:38):
But in saying that, you know traditionally the spring equinox,
which is only a week or so away, Now this
is the time of year from middle of September to
the middle of October. This is usually our most unsettled
period of weather, So this is not out of the ordinary.
What we need, though, is more injections of warmth. We
can cope with the wind, we can cope with cold changes,
but we need some warmer days and for September we

(02:01):
are leaning colder. There are more polar blasts or polar
airflows coming in. That doesn't mean snow to sea level,
but what it means is you'll feel the colder air,
and so will the pasture, so will the soil, and
so we are seeing lower pasture growth nationwide. Really at
the moment, I'm hoping that we will start to see
some warmer days in the mix as we go into October,

(02:22):
and to not be totally bleak. We do have some
subtropical weather coming through, especially around the North Island over
the next five days, so it's not all cold and miserable,
but as far as the wind is concerned, this is
the one part of the weather that drives us all
a bit nutty sometimes. And we've certainly got plenty of
windy weather off and on over the next couple of
weeks ahead.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Okay, who's going to get the heavy rain the west coast.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
So you know, if you're a geography teacher, really the
weather at the moment is what you teach at school.
Where most of the rain is falling in our rainforest.
So we're seeing about four hundred, maybe more than that
millimeters of rain coming over the next two weeks for
Westland and for Judland. We see one hundred millimeters spilling
over into Southland over the next couple of weeks and

(03:08):
around parts of Waykuto, Waititmo, Taranaki, Munawatu somewhere between seventy
and one hundred millimeters with lots of showers producing that rain.
Driest areas the very top of the North Island and
the eastern side of the country, from the Bay of
Islands to East Cape to wide It up at Wellington
even and right down to about Dunedin. That's the area

(03:30):
that's likely to be the driest, although Dunedian's right on
the edge of some of that wet weather that will
be coming out of the Southern Ocean around Southland.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yes, as I said, September can be a cruel mistress.
Hurry up and finish. Yeah, what does that song wake
me up when September ends?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, might have to do that past
the halfway mark.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Now, well, Phil, I'm very quickly going to go out
with that song just because I can. Hey, thank you
very much for your time today. All be it one
day late. My fault, not yours, my please your mate.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
All good