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Mark Taylor/Stuff
Areas such as Gisborne, ravaged by Cyclone Gabrielle, will get a reprieve in March, Metservice says.
A “triple-dip” weather system that has saturated and devastated parts of eastern New Zealand for three years is ending and coming soon will be rain for the west.
“March is really showing a pattern change for all of New Zealand and it couldn’t be welcomed more,” MetService meteorologist Georgina Griffiths said on Wednesday, the first day of autumn and as she was finalising the coming month’s forecast.
It is down to a meteorological situation first named by Peruvian anchovy fishers of the 1960s, El Niño and its companion weather phenomenon La Niña.
The former is ending – MetService says it has, while Niwa says it is expected to soon – after a three-year run, to be replaced by the latter.
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Griffiths said La Niña was now over for New Zealand and the March forecast painted a picture of the South Island staying warmer but the North Island being relatively cooler.
Crucially – day-to-day weather notwithstanding – it meant less rain for the east and more for the west.
That will be good news for the Gabrielle-soaked east and also for places like Southland – which have been in drought conditions but would join the west coast in getting more rain than normal through March.
David White stuff.co.nz
Twice this year, Peta Komaru Morgan has spent countless hours shovelling silt from his home and garden after cyclones.
Niwa principal scientist Chris Brandolino described the La Niña to El Niño switch as a tug of war.
Right now, the Coral Sea was tugging hard, creating the La Niña conditions but we were entering a three-phase change that, all going to forecast, would drastically alter the forecasts for the coming year.
Supplied
Rain-ravaged parts of the east can finally start drying out after three years of La Niña rain (File photo).
First we would enter a “neutral” period that was neither La Niña and El Niño during March.
While this sounded benign, Brandolino warned it just meant weather was less predictable.
“The driver’s seat – there is nobody there.”
But El Niño would win that tug of water as the year progressed and would likely reach its peak around Christmas.
The name El Niño came from Peruvian anchovy fishers of the 1960s who noticed cooling waters in some years around Christmastime and anchovies disappearing. The name meant “Christ child” or “little boy”.
What El Niño meant practically – in broad brushstrokes – was more weather coming from the west.
New Zealand was now coming out of a “triple dip” La Niña system, which had lasted a rare – but not unheard of – three years.
Nobody could tell how long El Niño would stick around until it properly formed, Brandolino said.
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