How wild will our spring weather be - and is La Nina still coming our way?

Winter has come to an end, and it's been a wet last few weeks.

A burst of rain in August culminated in flooding in Wellington and saturated days for the rest of us.

With us heading now into spring, the hope is that with longer days fast approaching, we might start to see some warmer weather again soon.

For an outlook on weather in the months ahead, today on The Front Page we’re joined by NZ Herald science writer, Jamie Morton.

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You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.

Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer: Paddy Fox
Producer: Ethan Sills

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hilda.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Winter has
come to an end, and it's been a wet last
few weeks. A burst of rain in August culminated in
flooding in Wellington and saturated days for the rest of us.

(00:29):
With us heading now into spring, the hope is that
with longer days fast approaching, we might start to see
some warmer weather again soon. For an outlook on weather
in the months ahead today on the front Page, we're
joined by Enzett Herald's science writer Jamie Morton. Jamie, how

(00:51):
typical was the weather this winter here in Auckland, for example?
It didn't really feel like we had that many particularly
cold days.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, it has been a bit of an odd season
really actually to me, it feels like it's been a
lot longer than usual because we had what was the
coldest May in fifteen years. That was partly due to
a parting shop from our Nino really, But since then
it's been a really mixed bag and we've had some
torrential downpours around New Zealand, just mixed in with some
unseasonably warm weather in parts of the country like it

(01:21):
Hastings in June temperatures had like twenty five point seven degrees,
which was like a June record, and July went down
is the eighth warmest for New Zealand. For Auckland though, yeah,
it probably has been slightly warmer than usual, around half
a de agree to a degree above average, but that's
partly down to, you know, the nights having been a

(01:43):
lot colder over winter with those big high pressure systems
that have actually made for warmer days as well. And yeah,
like this month, certainly, I think there's probably been a
bit of a shift towards colder weather due to what's
been happening down in Antarctica.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Now, you know, we love getting new weather terms when
we get you on Jamie, And the last few weeks
of winter were marred a bit by sudden stratospheric warming event.
What was this and how did it play out?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yeah, so a fear bit of a cold and unsettled
weather it's been happening down south can actually be attributed
to this thing. And in recent times there's only been
sort of four observed times that this has actually happened
in our half of the planet. So what is it. Well,
it happens when the stratosphere high above Antarctica suddenly warms

(02:34):
up and the winds slow down dramatically. And what that does,
that's what you can call a polar heat wave. But
what it does is it disrupts the vortex over Antarctica.
And for New Zealand we have the suspects because it
misses with the polar jet stream that flows around the continent.
So when their jet stream gets more wavy and wobbly
and disrupted, that means it pushes further out into the

(02:58):
latitudes where New Zealand sometimes since and if you're in
the South Islands below of South Islands, those people would
have noticed it with a lot more of those sort
of pollo glasses that have been coming and you know,
bringing up that freezing with it. And for the rest
of us, it's made for you know, somewhat cooler temperatures
over this last few weeks. In Taranaki where I am

(03:19):
obvioertainly noticed it.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
It is a windy, unsettled start to spring. Certainly we
are feeling that at the tail end of winter that's
going to continue into the early part of September, and
that's going to come with rain importantly, so for some
of the hydro lake areas and temperature swings. Temperature swings,
we've got air masses coming in from Australia that are
going to bring some warm days but also be followed
up by some cooler change through the first kind of

(03:44):
two three weeks of September, and then for the mid
to late stages of spring, we could see high pressure
developing around New Zealand shores.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
I've noticed there's been some unseasonably warm temperatures over in
Australia for late winter. How does that tie into what
we've been seeing over here.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah, so right now the pressure set up around the
entire Southern hemisphere is pretty interesting. So just to start,
we were just talking the high pressure and the pole
of the stratosphere, and then to the southwest of New Zealand
we've been seeing this constant low pressure, these big masses
that have been basically coming and off the Tasman Sea,
grabbing onto you know, moisture from northerly flows and just

(04:26):
sending all that in the form of rain into the
west coast. And that's what has led to a lot
of those big deluges down in Wesley. But Australia is
interesting because not only has it been sort of feeling
the influence of this sudden stratispirit warning event as well,
it's also a large part of the continent has been
under what meteorologists call the heat dome of high pressure.

(04:50):
It's more or less over to this big, slow moving
system that's coming from the east, and it's been sort
of hovering over the most of the country and driving
up some pretty crazy to and sending a lot of
that warmth south. That's why, for instance, just the other
day and one out backtown in South Australia, you know,
a temperatures hit like forty degrees well, Western Australia and

(05:12):
Kimberley I think it was had a new all time
record for winter of forty one point six degrees on Tuesdays.
So yeah, a lot of that's to do with a
big high pressure heat down over Australia, but obviously also
climate changes in the mixto.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Looking ahead to spring, what's the outlook at this stage
for the months ahead.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
The general upshot is that it's going to be a
bit of a rocky shift. I mean, I know we
always associate spring with rocky, unsettled weather, but this year
is going to be even more to that trend. So
for the early part of spring, we can expect more
of those sort of westerly flows that we've seen over
the last few weeks, which have been coming in off

(05:51):
the Tasman and bringing those rainy fronts into the West coast,
and some of those winds have the potential to be
quite strong over the next few weeks. I mean, right
now Met seven is watching for the possibility of some
of those westle is heading gale streets in parts of
New Zealand yea, And for the time being, we can
keep expecting to see the influence of that event happening
down in Antarctica, and also those lows to the southwest

(06:14):
coming in bringing that drizzly weather sometimes on the cooler side,
but on the east, places like Nature and Hastings can
expect more of that sort of weather where things are
almost sort of pushing it into November temperatures. So yeah,
it's a bit of a scrambled, messy picture, as it's
always as we go into spring, but this year, I
guess there's some interesting factors in the mix, some sort

(06:36):
of wild card factors.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Given the weather of recent weeks, how wet is it
predicted to be or we just don't know yet in terms.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
Of how wet it's going to be. I think that
is going to owe a lot to you know, some
of those factors. We're just discussing what's going to happen
with those low pressure systems, and you forecasters are telling
me that, you know, the potential for variability is always
there at the moment, So that can mean that rain
is something that there's always a possibility of coming in.

(07:15):
And no doubt if those westerly flows constantly moving over
New Zealand for places especially on the west coast, that
always means the potential for lots of those rain makers
coming in. I mean where I am in Tartanaki. You know,
I got soaked dropping the kids off the sporting and
over this month it's just felt like NonStop rain down
to the South Island.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Though.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
That's really good news because some of the southern hydro
likes have been running pretty dire and they've been getting
some good health and top ups of lots of this
rain coming in. So yeah, to answer your question, yeah,
a lot of it's going to come down to that
classic spring fariability, but also as we move later into
the season, I guess the big sort of question for
rain making will be what this much anticipated l ninya

(07:58):
clumate pattern means.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Well, last time we caught up on weather, La Ninia
was the one everyone was looking out for. Hey, what's
the latest thoughts on that. Does it seem like it
will actually form?

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, So we have talked about it a lot this year.
Meteorologists have been expecting Lanina to return most of the year,
and that is still widely expected to happen towards the
back end of spring. What's changed is it doesn't look
like it's going to be a particularly strong system. So

(08:30):
if we remember how crazy things got between twenty twenty
and twenty twenty three, when we had three Larnin years
in a row and you had like back to back
record warm winters and you had all that extreme with
the last summer, that's what we might think about when
we think of Larnina weather, you know, like constant northeast
of their flowers coming down from the tropics and just

(08:52):
spoiling the holidays of you know, people in Auckland and coramandor.
The indications are for this system is it's not going
to be quite as strong as was earlier anticipate, which
might weaken its sort of usual signal. But I think
nonetheless that could change if we see a couple of
big bursts and trade winds in the Pacific. So yeah,
it is a few bit of uncertainty of the but

(09:12):
at this point probably not going to be as strong
as previous ones.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
On the other side of the world, it's obviously been summer,
and once again record temperatures have been broken. July twenty
second has set the record as the hottest day on record,
breaking the previous record of July twenty first.

Speaker 5 (09:31):
June marked thirteen consecutive months of record breaking heat across
the globe. Worldwide, the Earth's aair temperature was hotter over
the past year than ever before, and by over one
point five degrees celsius.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
I worry is that these records will just be reported
like they are part of the Olympics, but not that
they actually mean that the human rights of a vast
majority of the people living on this planet are massively violated.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Are these soaring temperatures in the northern Hemisphere any signs
of what things could be like for summer for us?

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, it's always the old question, isn't it. I think
calming our summer, we're going to have a different sort
of range of factors on the board, but some of
them are going to be the same. One is the
fact that you know, we have that background climate change.
So you know, for me, it was quite interesting looking
at London, for instance, twenty five degrees in June, which

(10:28):
was more what you'd see in the Barcelona at that
time of the year, and thirty degrees again last month,
which isn't unusual. But with climate change, the number of
days where it's happening is just increasing over time. So
for us, I think this summer we're going to see
some sort of similar effects in the fact that we
have you know, that background warming. But also we're likely

(10:49):
going to see marine heat waves kicking off again around
the country, and that was a big driving factor behind,
you know, some of those scorching temperatures we've seen in
the North over their summer.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
What this is science saying at the moment around rising temperatures.
Have we made any progress or is it just getting worse?

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah? So, I mean, as you might recall, there's been
lots of discussion over the last decade around that symbolock
one point five degree threshold, you know, so that's basically
an aspiration to halt global warming at one point five
degrees but of the pre industrial average. Sadly, we just
actually saw global temperatures exceed that for an entire year,

(11:26):
and a major study just came out the other day
suggesting that one point six degrees was actually the new
best case scenario that we might see. And right now,
the current emissions pathway puts us on upwards of two
and a half degrees warming by the end of the century.
And even though there's been progress, nations including New Zealand,

(11:47):
really need to do more here. And in terms of
you know, the effects the impacts that climate change is happening, well,
I think for Kiwi's it's probably not less surprise. And
given all the extreme weather we've seen over the last
decade that seven of the eighth hottest years actually all
happened here since twenty thirteen.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Any positive weather news we can wrap up on, Jamie,
or are we set for a humored, muggy end of
the year leading to summer and we're all just going
to have to deal with being hot all the time? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Well, I think the good news for me is that
we now have less than a week of meteorological winter left.
So a friend of mine who's unattached and living here
in Santanaki tells me it's certainly the last New Zealand
winter that he's going to do for a couple of years.
But for everyone else, yeah, maybe the good news will
be some nice, warm temperatures. If you're on the East
coast and further out, there is the chance that Learninia

(12:37):
might actually bring us some favorable warm and nice weather
between October and November, so that's something to potentially look
forward to.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Thanks for joining us, Jamie. That's it for this episode
of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at enzet herold dot co
dot MZ. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Seles
with sound engineer Paddy Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to

(13:07):
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