Speaker 1: Hilda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Winter has
Speaker 2: come to an end, and it's been a wet last
Speaker 2: few weeks. A burst of rain in August culminated in
Speaker 2: flooding in Wellington and saturated days for the rest of us.
Speaker 2: With us heading now into spring, the hope is that
Speaker 2: with longer days fast approaching, we might start to see
Speaker 2: some warmer weather again soon. For an outlook on weather
Speaker 2: in the months ahead today on the front Page, we're
Speaker 2: joined by Enzett Herald's science writer Jamie Morton. Jamie, how
Speaker 2: typical was the weather this winter here in Auckland, for example?
Speaker 2: It didn't really feel like we had that many particularly
Speaker 2: cold days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it has been a bit of an odd season
Speaker 3: really actually to me, it feels like it's been a
Speaker 3: lot longer than usual because we had what was the
Speaker 3: coldest May in fifteen years. That was partly due to
Speaker 3: a parting shop from our Nino really, But since then
Speaker 3: it's been a really mixed bag and we've had some
Speaker 3: torrential downpours around New Zealand, just mixed in with some
Speaker 3: unseasonably warm weather in parts of the country like it
Speaker 3: Hastings in June temperatures had like twenty five point seven degrees,
Speaker 3: which was like a June record, and July went down
Speaker 3: is the eighth warmest for New Zealand. For Auckland though, yeah,
Speaker 3: it probably has been slightly warmer than usual, around half
Speaker 3: a de agree to a degree above average, but that's
Speaker 3: partly down to, you know, the nights having been a
Speaker 3: lot colder over winter with those big high pressure systems
Speaker 3: that have actually made for warmer days as well. And yeah,
Speaker 3: like this month, certainly, I think there's probably been a
Speaker 3: bit of a shift towards colder weather due to what's
Speaker 3: been happening down in Antarctica.
Speaker 2: Now, you know, we love getting new weather terms when
Speaker 2: we get you on Jamie, And the last few weeks
Speaker 2: of winter were marred a bit by sudden stratospheric warming event.
Speaker 2: What was this and how did it play out?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so a fear bit of a cold and unsettled
Speaker 3: weather it's been happening down south can actually be attributed
Speaker 3: to this thing. And in recent times there's only been
Speaker 3: sort of four observed times that this has actually happened
Speaker 3: in our half of the planet. So what is it. Well,
Speaker 3: it happens when the stratosphere high above Antarctica suddenly warms
Speaker 3: up and the winds slow down dramatically. And what that does,
Speaker 3: that's what you can call a polar heat wave. But
Speaker 3: what it does is it disrupts the vortex over Antarctica.
Speaker 3: And for New Zealand we have the suspects because it
Speaker 3: misses with the polar jet stream that flows around the continent.
Speaker 3: So when their jet stream gets more wavy and wobbly
Speaker 3: and disrupted, that means it pushes further out into the
Speaker 3: latitudes where New Zealand sometimes since and if you're in
Speaker 3: the South Islands below of South Islands, those people would
Speaker 3: have noticed it with a lot more of those sort
Speaker 3: of pollo glasses that have been coming and you know,
Speaker 3: bringing up that freezing with it. And for the rest
Speaker 3: of us, it's made for you know, somewhat cooler temperatures
Speaker 3: over this last few weeks. In Taranaki where I am
Speaker 3: obvioertainly noticed it.
Speaker 4: It is a windy, unsettled start to spring. Certainly we
Speaker 4: are feeling that at the tail end of winter that's
Speaker 4: going to continue into the early part of September, and
Speaker 4: that's going to come with rain importantly, so for some
Speaker 4: of the hydro lake areas and temperature swings. Temperature swings,
Speaker 4: we've got air masses coming in from Australia that are
Speaker 4: going to bring some warm days but also be followed
Speaker 4: up by some cooler change through the first kind of
Speaker 4: two three weeks of September, and then for the mid
Speaker 4: to late stages of spring, we could see high pressure
Speaker 4: developing around New Zealand shores.
Speaker 2: I've noticed there's been some unseasonably warm temperatures over in
Speaker 2: Australia for late winter. How does that tie into what
Speaker 2: we've been seeing over here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so right now the pressure set up around the
Speaker 3: entire Southern hemisphere is pretty interesting. So just to start,
Speaker 3: we were just talking the high pressure and the pole
Speaker 3: of the stratosphere, and then to the southwest of New Zealand
Speaker 3: we've been seeing this constant low pressure, these big masses
Speaker 3: that have been basically coming and off the Tasman Sea,
Speaker 3: grabbing onto you know, moisture from northerly flows and just
Speaker 3: sending all that in the form of rain into the
Speaker 3: west coast. And that's what has led to a lot
Speaker 3: of those big deluges down in Wesley. But Australia is
Speaker 3: interesting because not only has it been sort of feeling
Speaker 3: the influence of this sudden stratispirit warning event as well,
Speaker 3: it's also a large part of the continent has been
Speaker 3: under what meteorologists call the heat dome of high pressure.
Speaker 3: It's more or less over to this big, slow moving
Speaker 3: system that's coming from the east, and it's been sort
Speaker 3: of hovering over the most of the country and driving
Speaker 3: up some pretty crazy to and sending a lot of
Speaker 3: that warmth south. That's why, for instance, just the other
Speaker 3: day and one out backtown in South Australia, you know,
Speaker 3: a temperatures hit like forty degrees well, Western Australia and
Speaker 3: Kimberley I think it was had a new all time
Speaker 3: record for winter of forty one point six degrees on Tuesdays.
Speaker 3: So yeah, a lot of that's to do with a
Speaker 3: big high pressure heat down over Australia, but obviously also
Speaker 3: climate changes in the mixto.
Speaker 2: Looking ahead to spring, what's the outlook at this stage
Speaker 2: for the months ahead.
Speaker 3: The general upshot is that it's going to be a
Speaker 3: bit of a rocky shift. I mean, I know we
Speaker 3: always associate spring with rocky, unsettled weather, but this year
Speaker 3: is going to be even more to that trend. So
Speaker 3: for the early part of spring, we can expect more
Speaker 3: of those sort of westerly flows that we've seen over
Speaker 3: the last few weeks, which have been coming in off
Speaker 3: the Tasman and bringing those rainy fronts into the West coast,
Speaker 3: and some of those winds have the potential to be
Speaker 3: quite strong over the next few weeks. I mean, right
Speaker 3: now Met seven is watching for the possibility of some
Speaker 3: of those westle is heading gale streets in parts of
Speaker 3: New Zealand yea, And for the time being, we can
Speaker 3: keep expecting to see the influence of that event happening
Speaker 3: down in Antarctica, and also those lows to the southwest
Speaker 3: coming in bringing that drizzly weather sometimes on the cooler side,
Speaker 3: but on the east, places like Nature and Hastings can
Speaker 3: expect more of that sort of weather where things are
Speaker 3: almost sort of pushing it into November temperatures. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a bit of a scrambled, messy picture, as it's
Speaker 3: always as we go into spring, but this year, I
Speaker 3: guess there's some interesting factors in the mix, some sort
Speaker 3: of wild card factors.
Speaker 2: Given the weather of recent weeks, how wet is it
Speaker 2: predicted to be or we just don't know yet in terms.
Speaker 3: Of how wet it's going to be. I think that
Speaker 3: is going to owe a lot to you know, some
Speaker 3: of those factors. We're just discussing what's going to happen
Speaker 3: with those low pressure systems, and you forecasters are telling
Speaker 3: me that, you know, the potential for variability is always
Speaker 3: there at the moment, So that can mean that rain
Speaker 3: is something that there's always a possibility of coming in.
Speaker 3: And no doubt if those westerly flows constantly moving over
Speaker 3: New Zealand for places especially on the west coast, that
Speaker 3: always means the potential for lots of those rain makers
Speaker 3: coming in. I mean where I am in Tartanaki. You know,
Speaker 3: I got soaked dropping the kids off the sporting and
Speaker 3: over this month it's just felt like NonStop rain down
Speaker 3: to the South Island.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 3: That's really good news because some of the southern hydro
Speaker 3: likes have been running pretty dire and they've been getting
Speaker 3: some good health and top ups of lots of this
Speaker 3: rain coming in. So yeah, to answer your question, yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of it's going to come down to that
Speaker 3: classic spring fariability, but also as we move later into
Speaker 3: the season, I guess the big sort of question for
Speaker 3: rain making will be what this much anticipated l ninya
Speaker 3: clumate pattern means.
Speaker 2: Well, last time we caught up on weather, La Ninia
Speaker 2: was the one everyone was looking out for. Hey, what's
Speaker 2: the latest thoughts on that. Does it seem like it
Speaker 2: will actually form?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we have talked about it a lot this year.
Speaker 3: Meteorologists have been expecting Lanina to return most of the year,
Speaker 3: and that is still widely expected to happen towards the
Speaker 3: back end of spring. What's changed is it doesn't look
Speaker 3: like it's going to be a particularly strong system. So
Speaker 3: if we remember how crazy things got between twenty twenty
Speaker 3: and twenty twenty three, when we had three Larnin years
Speaker 3: in a row and you had like back to back
Speaker 3: record warm winters and you had all that extreme with
Speaker 3: the last summer, that's what we might think about when
Speaker 3: we think of Larnina weather, you know, like constant northeast
Speaker 3: of their flowers coming down from the tropics and just
Speaker 3: spoiling the holidays of you know, people in Auckland and coramandor.
Speaker 3: The indications are for this system is it's not going
Speaker 3: to be quite as strong as was earlier anticipate, which
Speaker 3: might weaken its sort of usual signal. But I think
Speaker 3: nonetheless that could change if we see a couple of
Speaker 3: big bursts and trade winds in the Pacific. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it is a few bit of uncertainty of the but
Speaker 3: at this point probably not going to be as strong
Speaker 3: as previous ones.
Speaker 2: On the other side of the world, it's obviously been summer,
Speaker 2: and once again record temperatures have been broken. July twenty
Speaker 2: second has set the record as the hottest day on record,
Speaker 2: breaking the previous record of July twenty first.
Speaker 5: June marked thirteen consecutive months of record breaking heat across
Speaker 5: the globe. Worldwide, the Earth's aair temperature was hotter over
Speaker 5: the past year than ever before, and by over one
Speaker 5: point five degrees celsius.
Speaker 1: I worry is that these records will just be reported
Speaker 1: like they are part of the Olympics, but not that
Speaker 1: they actually mean that the human rights of a vast
Speaker 1: majority of the people living on this planet are massively violated.
Speaker 2: Are these soaring temperatures in the northern Hemisphere any signs
Speaker 2: of what things could be like for summer for us?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's always the old question, isn't it. I think
Speaker 3: calming our summer, we're going to have a different sort
Speaker 3: of range of factors on the board, but some of
Speaker 3: them are going to be the same. One is the
Speaker 3: fact that you know, we have that background climate change.
Speaker 3: So you know, for me, it was quite interesting looking
Speaker 3: at London, for instance, twenty five degrees in June, which
Speaker 3: was more what you'd see in the Barcelona at that
Speaker 3: time of the year, and thirty degrees again last month,
Speaker 3: which isn't unusual. But with climate change, the number of
Speaker 3: days where it's happening is just increasing over time. So
Speaker 3: for us, I think this summer we're going to see
Speaker 3: some sort of similar effects in the fact that we
Speaker 3: have you know, that background warming. But also we're likely
Speaker 3: going to see marine heat waves kicking off again around
Speaker 3: the country, and that was a big driving factor behind,
Speaker 3: you know, some of those scorching temperatures we've seen in
Speaker 3: the North over their summer.
Speaker 2: What this is science saying at the moment around rising temperatures.
Speaker 2: Have we made any progress or is it just getting worse?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So, I mean, as you might recall, there's been
Speaker 3: lots of discussion over the last decade around that symbolock
Speaker 3: one point five degree threshold, you know, so that's basically
Speaker 3: an aspiration to halt global warming at one point five
Speaker 3: degrees but of the pre industrial average. Sadly, we just
Speaker 3: actually saw global temperatures exceed that for an entire year,
Speaker 3: and a major study just came out the other day
Speaker 3: suggesting that one point six degrees was actually the new
Speaker 3: best case scenario that we might see. And right now,
Speaker 3: the current emissions pathway puts us on upwards of two
Speaker 3: and a half degrees warming by the end of the century.
Speaker 3: And even though there's been progress, nations including New Zealand,
Speaker 3: really need to do more here. And in terms of
Speaker 3: you know, the effects the impacts that climate change is happening, well,
Speaker 3: I think for Kiwi's it's probably not less surprise. And
Speaker 3: given all the extreme weather we've seen over the last
Speaker 3: decade that seven of the eighth hottest years actually all
Speaker 3: happened here since twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Any positive weather news we can wrap up on, Jamie,
Speaker 2: or are we set for a humored, muggy end of
Speaker 2: the year leading to summer and we're all just going
Speaker 2: to have to deal with being hot all the time? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, I think the good news for me is that
Speaker 3: we now have less than a week of meteorological winter left.
Speaker 3: So a friend of mine who's unattached and living here
Speaker 3: in Santanaki tells me it's certainly the last New Zealand
Speaker 3: winter that he's going to do for a couple of years.
Speaker 3: But for everyone else, yeah, maybe the good news will
Speaker 3: be some nice, warm temperatures. If you're on the East
Speaker 3: coast and further out, there is the chance that Learninia
Speaker 3: might actually bring us some favorable warm and nice weather
Speaker 3: between October and November, so that's something to potentially look
Speaker 3: forward to.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Jamie. That's it for this episode
Speaker 2: of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 2: stories and extensive news coverage at enzet herold dot co
Speaker 2: dot MZ. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Seles
Speaker 2: with sound engineer Paddy Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
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Speaker 2: and tune in to Morrow for another look behind the headlines.