Strong winds, thunderstorms forecast to lash New Zealand during final winter weekend
MetService forecaster Michael Pauley told the Herald a region of unstable air would move on to New Zealand today.
“There are quite a few thunderstorm risks around, with some hail where some of them could be squally,” he said. “We’re expecting some strong wind gusts.”
Pauley said the unsettled weather would affect the western regions of New Zealand.
“Northland, Auckland, Coromandel, down through Waitomo, Waikato, Whanganui and the Tararua District,” he said.
MetService issued a strong wind watch for the Hawke’s Bay south of Napier, the Tararua District, and Wairarapa north of Martinborough from 6am until 8pm.
“We’re expecting heavy showers and also snow to lower on some of the South Island mountain roads.”
MetService has issued road snowfall warnings for Crown Range Rd and Milford Rd from early today until this afternoon.
Pauley said the strong westerly winds and possible thunderstorms in the North Island were forecast to ease by evening.
However, the winds and rain are forecast to return during the last weekend of winter.
Pauley said New Zealand tended to get stuck in spring’s westerly flow.
“We are expecting those showers to continue during the weekend. Because it is unstable, there is a risk it will be heavy,” he said.
“The way that the winds are blowing means the southerly flow will continue into the weekend. Western regions can continue to get a bit wet throughout Saturday and Sunday.”
MetService has also forecast heavy southwest swells, with heights between 5 and 6.5m to develop for the western coastlines of the country throughout Sunday.
Pauley said North Island temperatures would reach mid to high teens then fall to the low teens.
Auckland is forecast to hit a high of 17C and fall to a low of 11C, while Hamilton will be chillier with a high of 15C and a low of 7C.
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Even Australians get it - so why not Kiwis???
“Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages.
On Australia’s main grid last quarter, renewables and energy storage contributed more than 50% of supplied electricity for the first time, while wholesale power prices were more than 40% lower than a year earlier.
[…] shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.
Last quarter, wind generation was up almost 30%, grid solar 15% and grid-scale batteries almost tripled their output. Gas generation fell 27% to its lowest level for a quarter century, while coal fell 4.6% to its lowest quarterly level ever.
Gas has long been the most expensive way to produce power. Gas peaking plants tend to fire up only when supply struggles to meet demand and power prices soar. Less demand for gas has flowed through to lower wholesale prices.”
Full article: www.theguardian.com...
If even Australians see the benefit of solar - then why is NZ actively boycotting solar uptake? The increased line rental for electricity was done to make solar less competitive and prevent cost per kWh to rise even more than it did - and electricity costs are expected to rise even more. Especially as National favours gas - which is the most expensive form of generating electricity. Which in turn will accelerate Climate Change, as if New Zealand didn’t have enough problems with droughts, floods, slips, etc. already.
Time to Tickle Your Thinker 🧠
If a zookeeper had 100 pairs of animals in her zoo, and two pairs of babies are born for each one of the original animals, then (sadly) 23 animals don’t survive, how many animals do you have left in total?
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